UPDATE ON : Can you help me title this painting?

City of Gold

8" x 8" x 1.5"

Oil with a palette knife of cradled board
SOLD at The Red Inn

I love coming up with titles for my paintings. As I am painting, it usually comes to me. But this time I need your help. Nothing is bubbling to the surface so I'd love to hear your suggestions.

By the way, this was painted from a photo I took on one of my recent visits to New York.

Thanks, good luck, and I look forward to your inspirational suggestions!

UPDATE 9.26.11 Wow-what a great list of suggested titles I received from everyone. I really appreciate them all and am going to put them all in the hopper to use for future paintings. I decided on City of Gold-this seemed to be a theme running throughout a lot of the suggestions.

Also-for Sherry, that little red building "dwarfed by the city that grew up around it" is the Merchant's House Museum on East Fourth Street. It looks like a really interesting place and I have to put it on the list for our next visit.

Looking out on Lafayette

Concrete Jungle

8" x 8"

Oil with a palette knife on panel
SOLD

Another painting from my visit to NYC. This is a view out onto Lafayette Street from my friend's place on Great Jones in the lower east side. I just love painting these windows, the color of the window reflections changed from orange to blue as you moved up the building. I can't help but sing that Alicia Keys song when I think of New York. "...concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there's nothing you can't do... when you're in New York..."

Weekend field trip

Last weekend we went to NYC and one of our favorite parts of the trip was our visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They are open late on Saturday nights and we discovered that they have live music and serve cocktails on the mezzanine. What a wonderful way to spend a cold winter evening in NYC. We scored a table right up front by the music, a wonderful classical quartet. Not wanting to use the flash, the photos are quite dark so I did the best I could brightening them up in Photoshop but trust me, the setting was just perfect.

Polo made the observation that the violin player reminded him of this Delacroix painting of Paganini. I was impressed with his quick recall of the correct artist and subject. Which inspired me to want to paint her in this style.

Paganini

by Eugene Delacroix, c.1832

Juried in!

I recently entered these 3 paintings into a juried show for the Zullo Gallery Center for the Arts and I just found out today that they accepted all three! How exciting. Now I have to get busy doing the finish work for the show. Reception is September 25, from 7-9pm.

These streets will make you feel brand new...

New York from the High Line

Oil with a palette knife on artist board

12" x 12"x 1.5"
SOLD

I'm gradually trying bigger sizes of city scenes hoping to avoid the intimidation factor going to a really large canvas size all at once. Reminds me of when I was in art school and the drawing teacher would have the models come into each class with less and less clothes on. I guess he was breaking us in so that life drawing class and naked bodies were not so intimidating all at once.

Before we left for recent trip to New York, we kept hearing that song in our head by Alicia Keys and singing it around the house.

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There’s nothing you can’t do
Now you’re in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Hear it for New York, New York, New York

Perhaps, I am also inspired by the start of the new season of Mad Men tonight?

Ideas and works in progress

I started this painting last week...

It was inspired by this photo I took while in NYC walking on the new High Line, a great new park created from an old elevated rail line. I knew instantly that I wanted to paint it.
 I also knew I wanted to paint it in a square format, so I did this sketch first.
Then I had an idea. Since I seem to be fascinated with both NY and Boston city scenes, why not play up their rivalry and do paintings of similar scenes from both cities?

So, I then did this sketch from a photo I took while walking around Boston during my lunch hour. New York from the High Line vs. Boston from the Finish Line (think marathon). I actually sketched this while looking at the photo on my iPhone. Which sparked another idea...

I paint from photos that I take all the time. I usually print them out, but am always disappointed by how much vibrancy and detail is lost. So, what if Apple created an iPad app for artists where you could upload your photos, plug in the size canvas you're painting, zoom in, crop, even overlay gridlines if you want, and it would illuminate your photo for you as long as you are painting?  Of course you could get an accessory that clipped to your easel also. What do you think of my idea? 

The New York report

I haven't been doing much painting lately, but we did spent a wonderful four days in NYC recently. The last time we were there it was wintertime and boy does the city really come alive in the summer.

Our first stop, The Guggenheim Museum. I had never been there before and so I was fascinated by the architecture and layout of it. I snapped this shot before I realized I was standing next to a giant "NO PHOTOGRAPHS PLEASE" sign.

D'oh.

Our next adventure was renting a rowboat in Central Park. What fun that was. Isn't Polo all New York with his stingy brim on? Of course, we had to quench our thirst with cocktails at The Boathouse afterwards. Yum.

As we walked through Central Park, we came across the back of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I noticed this structure on the top that looked like a giant boat made out of reeds and people were walking on it. I keep meaning to check their exhibits to see what this is all about.

The next day we ventured over to Chelsea, hoping to visit some galleries, but they were all closed (it was Sunday but I think we forgot cuz we were in vacation mode). Double D'oh.

But we stumbled upon this really great new addition to NYC--The High Line. They've converted an old elevated rail line to this wonderful park that spans several city blocks and gives you a whole new perspective on the city.

Can you see the guy standing at the bottom of the stairs looking down at the street through the giant windows? Cool.

Along the path, there was this piece of art/sculpture by the artist, Richard Galpin, that you had to experience by looking through this viewfinder.

Here's a photo taken through the viewfinder. Very graphic and abstract, kind of a cool idea.

Below is the description if you can read it. I'm hoping they plan to put more artwork up there. It's would make a great open air sculpture garden.

I took lots of photos for painting inspiration so get ready to see more of NYC as interpreted with a palette knife coming soon.

How blue is your sky?

Is That Our Hotel?

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

12" x 9"

Click on the image to enlarge
SOLD

I've been staring at this painting for over a week now wondering if the color I used for the sky is right. During critique, some fellow artists thought it could be a little brighter or darker. So I did an experiment in Photoshop trying out different options before I actually committed to changing it. Of course these won't show the palette knife texture, but it helps to show different values and shades of blues.

Deep blue

Bright blue

Soft  blue

Grey day

It's interesting to see how it changes the feel of the painting, isn't it? I would love to hear your thoughts.

New City View

City View 3

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

8" x 8" x .75"

Click on the image to enlarge
SOLD

I've been painting some more city views from photographs I had taken in NYC. The architecture and juxtaposition of all of the different building styles is so fascinating. I like combining different buildings into my own composition, like this one.

Afternoon in the city

Afternoon in the City

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

8" x 8" x .75"

Click on the image to enlarge
SOLD

This is the second in my series of paintings from our last trip to NYC. We had just arrived at my friends place and the warm light shining on the buildings across the street caught the attention of my camera. I see a few things I might want to fix, but overall I am pleased with out it turned out. Would love to hear your comments. Kim-I know yours will be "bigger!".

Out the Back Window

Out the Back Window

Oil with a palette knife on cradled artist board

8" x 8" x .75"

Click on the image to enlarge
SOLD

While we were in New York City a few weekends ago, I took a bunch of photos as inspiration for new paintings. It's pretty easy for me to get inspired in New York. This painting was done from a photo I took looking out the back window of my friend's loft. I painted it in one sitting at my art class last night. (I guess that is technically considered alla prima?) I really prefer to keep working at a painting while it's still wet. Especially with the thickness of the paint that I use. I'm excited to do more of these.

Camouflage

We were in New York City this past weekend and spent the day at the Museum of Modern Art. This was one of those moments when I'm so glad that I had my camera with me. We turned the corner into the Jackson Pollock room and saw this guy who was wearing a camouflage coat that looked just like one of the paintings. Too funny. I imagine him saying to himself "I am so drawn to these paintings, but I don't know why."