20 First Dates: Chicago Electric

 

 

Chicago Electric

12 x 18 inch oil on linen panel

 

 

With the arrival of November, my thoughts turn to the upcoming holidays. During the Thanksgiving holiday, my husband and I often visit his family in the Chicago suburbs, affording me the perfect opportunity to visit one of my favorite cities and one of my favorite art museums, The Art Institute of Chicago, all in one fell swoop. 

 

This year, we'll stick closer to home, but I can still pay homage to this wonderful city through my artwork, and Chicago Electric is a perfect way to showcase the Loop and its magic. I can always get lost in the abstract play of colorful reflections and lights.

Details of Chicago Electric

 

 

 

Framed view of Chicago Electric, in a satin black frame 

 

Braving the Elements

After a busy summer and fall art show season, the closing months of this year mean that it's time for me to turn my focus to preparing for 2018. An important element of my preparation for the year ahead is to gather source material and inspiration during these quieter months when I'm not in the midst of a packed show schedule.

I just returned from a brief trip to Chicago, where I delivered a large cityscape painting to a collector, visited family, and then slipped into downtown for a day to browse the Art Institute of Chicago and snap some reference photos. These opportunities to prowl the city and look at beautiful artwork while also gathering ideas are absolutely essential to sustaining my creative energy during my busy exhibition season.

With apologies for my reflection in the photo, this is
Futago Islands, Matsushima by Kawase Hasui, 1933

The Art Institute had a fantastic exhibition of Japanese prints on display. It was right up my alley: "City and Country: Prints from Early 20th Century Japan." Thanks to my past visits to the Freer Museum of Art in Washington, DC, where they specialize in Asian artwork, I've gained a great admiration for Japanese woodblock prints.

A rain-soaked view below the elevated train
platform in downtown Chicago

After spending some time at the museum, I ventured out into the downtown area of Chicago. A cold rain descended not too long after I stepped outside. While it made things challenging (digital cameras are not built for wind-driven rainfall), I was able to find several interesting subjects that will become the basis for upcoming cityscape paintings in the coming months.

This change of scene from nearby East Coast cities, such as Philadelphia and New York, is so vital for me. I love the different energy and subjects in new venues, so it makes braving the elements worthwhile. Besides, Chicagoans are so polite that they won't even step in front of me when I line up to take a photo. Not only is the city full of interesting architecture and cool vistas, the people are nice, too! Stay tuned in the coming months for the fruits of this labor.

Recent Cityscapes

As we reach the mid-point of summer, y'know, the time of year when "Back to School" ads begin to appear and the collective mood of America's youth crashes, I'm turning my attention to my cityscapes as I prepare for several art shows this fall.

Two weeks ago, I wrapped a show in Michigan where I exhibited my pastel paintings. As I get ready for fall, I'll have more opportunities to display my oil paintings and that's where I'm beginning to focus now. You'll see another post within the next couple of weeks on my oil painting blog to showcase some of those new works. In the meantime, here are some recent pastel cityscapes, both big and small, that I recently finished.

Zip Zip 6 x 8 original pastel.

First, small but dynamic: Zip Zip is what I refer to as a "mini city" piece, and it captures one of Chicago's distinctive maroon taxi cabs as it flies across our view during a nighttime fare. One of my favorite things to do in the pastel medium is to just fuzz out the motion of color, as with the tail lights in this composition.

Chicago Lights 16 x 24 original pastel

Next, in keeping with my Chicago theme, here's a larger piece celebrating quintessential downtown Chicago called, appropriately enough, "Chicago Lights." It's been a little while since I introduced a new limited edition print of one of my cityscapes, and I chose this subject as a new print for 2016. You can find out more about this piece under the limited edition prints area of my web site.

Chicago Zig Zag 12 x 18 original pastel

Finally, there's "Chicago Zig Zag," featuring one of my favorite places to hang out in all of Chicago: right underneath the El. I enjoyed creating this piece because the composition is different from a more conventional subject with the way that the elevated train platform breaks up the pictorial plane.

Enjoy!

From Start to Finish

This past weekend, I met with a woman who's getting started on her art career and who wanted advice on how to take her artwork to a more professional level. She works full time in a computer career right now, and her time for working on her artwork is limited. One of the most valuable things that I tried to share with her is the importance of doing initial, preparatory studies before starting on an "actual" piece.

Before I had the luxury of devoting myself full time to my art career, I would often dive into an idea because I was just so excited and I wanted to get going right away. But then I got lost in the middle. And then the whole thing ended up in the proverbial vertical file. This was enormously frustrating, especially because my time was so limited and I wanted to maximize my results while holding down a different full time gig. Fortunately, over the past years of working full time on my art, I've become more disciplined about completing preparatory studies. In addition, I've done a lot of homework about the importance of starting things well.

To me, the characteristics of a good start to a new piece include strong shapes, bold color, and an unambiguous concept. As I work more with oil painting, the importance of a good start becomes even greater to me because I'm still relatively new to this medium. If I can get things off to a good, running start, then I find that all of the remaining details and flourished naturally fall into place.

Shown here is the progression, from start to finish, of a brand new cityscape, "Chicago Twilight." This is my first new cityscape in oil for 2015 and I'm pleased with the result. You can see the finished photograph of this piece on my web site under Golden Chicago. Enjoy!

The initial block-in This is the foundation for everything else that follows. While it can be loosely set in, the drawing and shapes need to be accurate.

Refinements: Here I built in darker colors and more details to set the composition in place.

Color Touches: After getting the initial details in place, I start to embellish the overall color in this piece. The whole motivation behind this subject was the juxtaposition of the warm light and cool blues and purples throughout the subject.

Almost Done: Here, the final details are pretty much in place, especially refinements to the street lights and the architectural details on the buildings.

Just for Fun: An action photo of my palette. I love playing around with these colors!