On Location! College & Main

"College & Main" - 9x12 - Watercolor

Finally! A warm (almost) day with sunshine in North Texas.  I made my mind up yesterday, no matter what the weather, I was going to paint plein air.  I'm sure glad the sun stayed out until I finished this one. I decided to set up on College street, just 1/2 block north of the corner of College & Main street, Waxahachie, Texas. The green building is a new boutique; the red store in the middle is Scott's Furniture; on the left of Scott's is the old Citizen's National Bank building.  I started about 12:30pm when the sun was still pretty high but was still hitting the store fronts full-on.  Familiar with the way the sun "tracks" on this section of the downtown square, I knew by the time I finished my preliminary sketch, the shadows would be where I wanted them. Using a #12 round, I washed the 1st layer in pretty fast & loose letting colors mingle wet into wet. I continued to build layer upon layer, careful to "cut" around the white & light areas with stronger color mixtures, defining windows and building characteristics. I finished up about 3pm as the sun was beginning to cool and clouds were moving in. I took a quick photo of the location with my phone camera, it takes really great photos and I love the convenience.  

The sky was beginning to haze over and I was losing my light pretty fast. I like the composition of the photo; the car wasn't there when I started and would add "life" to the scene.  I'll probably do a bigger studio painting using this photo and my plein air as reference.

All in all, it was a good day's work in my outdoor studio!