March 31st

These are art thoughts rather than the craft of scenery painting.

Here I have pulled out all the stops to give the illusion of depth. To emphasise the traffic lights I have misted over the background with a transparent layer of white then repainted the traffic lights to make them stronger.

The skyscraper dissolves into nothing at the base and there just a fuzzy hint of some windows on one side. Colour and detail is degraded at this distance. When painting a block (The building in the distance on the right for instance) I make the actual edge of the dark side a little darker. Likewise the edge of the light side I would make slightly lighter.

The contrast of the really dark building on the right points up the "sunshine" in the background street.

Shadows on the ground hint at unseen buildings. Shadows at this distance do not have distinct edges. Besides I like to give my back cloths a "painterly" feel. Otherwise you might as well have a photograph hung there.

Note the yellow bottom to the sky. You can only do this trick with some yellows. Others if you then meld them into blue would immediately turn into green. Notice too that the sky is a darker blue at the top.

Hey, I remembered to spell 'Theater' the American way!

I've also misted over ('Knocked back' is the artist's term) the street sign bottom right. Incidental captions like this are inclined to appear too noticeable otherwise. Different for the 'Club Pompeii' which is part of the show.