This is the view looking North from the Sixth street bridge.
Man, I love painting large scale. I used to be so afraid of it, and I would often lose that loose, painterly look that my smaller paintings had, I think because I became so focused on rendering all the little details now that I had the room to do so. But overtime, and because of painting so many small studies, I’ve learned more and more how to be suggestive with the details, and that’s what I love about this piece. Up close, it has the look of a small study- thick, under-mixed brush strokes and the underpainting still being allowed to show through. And a scene this complex insists simplification.
But the biggest lesson I’ve learned with the large scale is to “do your homework”. In the past, I’d start a finished studio piece with just one or two reference photos, not even a study from the location. For this one, I had several reference photos, all with slightly different lighting and two smaller studies- one from location, and one from a photo. Having so much reference material allowed me to pick out the best parts of each one and decide exactly the look I was going for- and so approach the final painting with much more confidence that I otherwise wouldn’t have had.