Posts Tagged ‘urban’

Painting over the speed limit

I have always wanted make a painting of the Beltway, the highway that circles around Washington, DC. It has the classical elements of a landscape: trees, open space, and sky except that it has a ribbon of concrete going through it on which you are traveling at very high speeds. Not really a great place to savor the complexities of natural light and atmosphere. And certainly not a place to set up an easel. But since every is moving at about the same speed and the landscape changes so little—one highway looks much like any other—there is a sense of time slowing down, too. Anyway I thought there was some interesting situation there to work with and this is my first attempt. I worked from a source photograph, a process that is relatively new to me. I altered the color from the original photo to exaggerate the sense of space fading away in a thick atmosphere and of the light reflecting and being absorbed by the highway.

 

This painting was entered and accepted into the Annual Members Show at the Yellow Barn Gallery in Glen Echo, MD. It is up through December 21 so stop by if you can.