Daybreak Over Sutherland, 10 x 25 inch oil on panel
My home city of Knoxville, Tennessee provided the inspiration for Daybreak Over Sutherland. This painting
captures the first morning light over Sutherland Avenue, a main city
street that runs across downtown near where I live. It was a rare
occasion for me to be up early (I'm not a morning person), and the beautiful light in this moment happened to catch my eye.
Y'know, when you're a kid and you declare, "I wanna be an artist when I
grow up," it's unlikely that you'll follow that statement with "...and
I'm gonna paint gas stations!" But I don't consciously see a service
station in this moment. In fact, almost every city subject that I paint
is less about the actual "objects" in the composition and more about the
placement of shapes and colors. In this instance, I loved the wide
stretch of the moment and the play of reds and greens throughout the
subject. Oh, and if I have an excuse to feature a gorgeous sky, then
that's definitely a winner.
