"Tenement" 14" X 29" watercolor

Tenement by April M Rimpo

Tenement

watercolor

14" X 29" image

20" X 35" brushed silver frame

$975 within the United States*

Available in Touchstone Gallery's Online Store

In Tenement I played with darks and lights making what was shadow areas in my photograph light and bright areas dark.  I call this an "inverse" painting. I also played with colors using vibrant colors in the now lit areas of the brick wall and rich, dark blues and purples for the now dark areas.  The fire-escape stairs and railings were done in light neutral colors to separate them from the wall. When I compare this with the original photograph I feel looking at this painting is much more exciting.  See my source photo below.

At left is the Analog color scheme I selected for the painting. The color charts from Color Scheme Designer provide various strengths of each color and some blends of the colors.  I use two blues, burnt orange, and a purple to create this painting, so I stayed fairly true to the plan, shifting the rose color more to the purple end of the spectrum and adding some a lighter blue.

My source photo

I think my inverse approach has led to interesting paintings that is fun for the viewer to take in and figure out.  One of my other paintings done using the same approach is described in my blog post Fire Escape.

I'd love to hear whether you find this approach draws you into the painting or if something closer to the source photo would have been closer to what you like.  

* Contact April regarding purchase outside the United States

"Fire Escape", 26.5" X 20" watercolor

Fire Escape by April M. Rimpo

As is true for many of my city-scapes, Fire Escape is primarily about interesting patterns.  Fire Escapes provide a natural repetition of pattern.  The windows adjacent to the fire escape provided additional repetition.  Fire Escape was also a play with negative shapes.  

Fire Escape

watercolor

26.5” X 20” image

34" X 28" brushed silver frame

$1195

Donated to the 2015 Collector's Choice  Art Auction held by the Maryland Federation of Art to help fun this non-profit organization

Many watercolorists seem to be drawn to fire escapes as a subject for their painting.  I had some photographs I had taken over the years, but every time I looked at them I struggled with how to do something different.  I had cropped them into what I thought were interesting design patterns, but that was not enough.  Finally I thought about inverting the values so the darks and shadows became the lights and the light colors became the darks.  Once I started to play with that idea then I could focus on a color scheme for the darks without being caught up in realistic colors.  It no longer mattered whether the building color was believable, since nothing was “normal”.  At that point my color inspiration had been freed from the mundane. 

When I think of the city I think of pale blues and grays, but now I felt free to explore richer blues and purple tones.  I wanted a restricted color palette so I stayed with an Analogous palette.   Cerulean was only used in a few of the lighter passages and in the floor of the landings.  I did branch out slightly from this palette in some of the lighter gray and beige passages.

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Copyright April M Rimpo 2015 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.