The sunny side of the street

This is my second attempt at sketching this scene. Why was this view so difficult? Because to get this vantage point I have to park under a dark overpass and I can’t see my paint mixes in my palette. What I really wanted to convey in this was the buildings on the left in sunlight and those on the right in shadow. The first time I painted it I ended up with a muddy mess but  this time I tried to keep the colours lighter even though I couldn’t really see what was on my paper either.

I had a companion painter with me today. Marc Taro Holmes and I drew together at the Redpath Museum a few weeks ago and this time it was his turn to trek to my end of town. He painted in the car with me, which is new for him, and when he thaws out from the experience (it’s pretty cold in the shadows these days!) you will certainly see his view of this scene on his blog. We had time to do two sketches each but I will save the other one for tomorrow’s post.