More Cityscapes!

Nice work everyone! Very fascinating to glimpse into your thinking processes, too. I'm learning stuff!

Thank you for the challenge, Terry. Great idea, great guide lines. I really learned a lot from it...if I could only follow the directions.  

Violetta Smith
http://violettasmithpaintings.blogspot.com/

This is 8,5'' x3'' small format for me.
I ve tried to paint in an impressiomist style the flux of the cars through the town ruled by the traffic lights I gave to the building a ghostly appearence to concentrate the eyes on the lights and cars

Robert R

Here, I painted this cityscape for Studio notes , where Terry Miura asked us to use only 2 values at least at the beginning, ignore the details, choose one dominante color, avoid too numerous sharp edges.(This point was a little obscure for me).I tried to follow this advice, chose french ultramarine as basic color. I had a black underpainting, as there was something else before.

Sylviane Le Cann
http://sylviane-lec.blogspot.com

The main thing that drew me to this challenge was the sherr IMpossibility of getting my knife around the cars/buildingscape. I think my work originally became knife-driven with heavy paint a while back out of a need to eliminate the detail. I didn't realise at the time I was setting myself a rule that was inherently simplifying. Alongside this, I also had a sort of limiting belief that photo-references gave me and my knife even more information and detail to sort through in order to find my subject and process. So until this challenge, I tended to work almost exclusively from life.  I think following this exercise (and your abstract studies from life drawings) these limiting ideas might at last have been well and truly shattered. In working through this dastardly photo you kindly provided (which I'm nearly certain is no straightforward snap-shot down that street!) I've realised just how much editorial simplification and invention has actually been going on all along. Thanks a bunch!

Also wanted to say how much I've enjoyed seeing the fantastic stuff from everyone else!

Mike Lang
London

So glad Deborah Secor gave me the heads up on this challenge.

I'm trying to loosen up on my landscape painting and a challenge like this is a great exercise. I have done buildings but never a cityscape and never cars.

I actually had little problem keeping this loose and not getting too detailed. The reason being I knew it wouldn't be any good so the pressure was off. Actually, I feel it's turned out not bad at all.

This is in soft pastels about 11x9"

Ruth M

The following four images are process shots accompanied by comments, from Randy Blasquez~

Here is my attempt at painting from Terry Miura's photo. The challenge is to simplify, and because I am on this path lately to simplify and paint with the concept in mind (rather than to copy), I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I haven't had a lot of studio time lately, but I started with the under painting a few days back. I don't always start a painting the same way, and to me this one called for breaking down the value shapes into no more than "two" values  - why not? I've been using a varnish medium to wash in my under paintings and decided to try it for the block in. The result is nice and transparent. My goal here, other than to simplify and stay out of the details, is to paint the "idea". I love street scenes, and have been admiring Terry's new Street Series.

In fact, I just finished a new street piece, but it had people and not cars. So I decided that I could do this in the same manner, kind of. Or I was hoping for the same type of result, where I would paint "shapes" not people, and "shapes", not cars.

Okay, for the concept. I was in Carmel last weekend where I got to get up close to some large paintings by Ken Auster. I just love the way he can take a city scene in San Francisco and guess what-- SIMPLIFY.

I bought his book and in it he talks about the way he will use warm and cool to bring life into a gray painting. So, I wanted to paint this piece with that in mind. Cool shadows, warm light. I want to do it without going crazy with color, which I have a tendency to do.

I wanted to establish the values again buy comparing the foreground to the middle ground to the background. To create distance you want to be careful to use the tools of a painter - cooler, softer, grayer, smaller, etc., as to painting recedes.

Painting is 18x18x1.5" - Linen

I had fun with this. Each car has it's own personality and shape. As much as I wanted to leave more abstract shapes, I feel that I went a little too far on the cars. This was a great learning experience for me, and I enjoyed keeping it SIMPLE. I try to do this with all my paintings by starting each shape with only two values, and going from there. It is like a building block. Or as I say to my students, start with the silver dollar, on top of that put the fifty cent piece, then the quarter, and only if it is necessary, add more detail. Detail should be only the last 5% of a painting at most.....




Randy Blasquez
http://blasquezfineart.blogspot.com/