Painting
From Your Own Photos... Another View |
CHAPTER
6 When I visited New York City, I took several rolls of my favorite subject in that City - Central Park. It doesn't take one very long to discover that there is a veritable microcosm of humanity walking, sitting and sometimes living within the confines of this famous landmark. In many of my Central Park paintings, I have attempted to show the humanity one may find in this marvelous place. The titles of the paintings reflect the diversity of that humanity: "The Bird Lady", "The Sunshine Painter", and "The Rag Lady", etc. Now, looking again through my photos and sketches, I'm drawn to yet another scene in the park. A corner with a traffic signal, a bench, a fountain, people and vendors selling hot bagles from umbrella covered pushcarts. I sketch out different ideas, moving figures from left to right, foreground to background. "Now, how would a little boy with a balloon look?" Or, better yet, "how about that balloon stuck up in the limbs of a tree with the little boy forlornly sitting on a bench in left foreground? Or, "How about an elderly man reading a newspaper on that bench instead?" One idea after another, each sketch a little more clever than the last. Then, it suddenly strikes me and I know what I must do. As the writer said, "I must kill my darlings"' Out goes the little boy, the balloon, the man reading the newspaper, the people, the vendors and the pushcarts! I now take fresh paper and begin anew - choosing the best photo of this scene. I first decide to change the time of day and the climate, so now it's early morning and it's cold and misty. I soften the background creating that “morning fog” look.
Although I employed my "artistic license" quite broadly throughout this painting using only the elements I thought were important, I feel the scene is an authentic rendering of a specific time and place. If you were to go to that particular end of the park, I would like to think you would still recognize it after seeing this painting. |
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