Daily painting #42: Corner cafe (unfinished)

Cityscapes are still, for me, the final frontier of plein air painting: challenging but exciting. Here I tried to get the feel of a corner cafe, on Norfolk Street in Bethesda, and its surroundings. At first I had a clean image of the sign and front window of the cafe, but I didn’t like it and wiped it out, and never got around to restating it before sunset. I still learned a fair bit from this tiny (6” x 8”) study.

Geoff Watson, “Corner cafe (unfinished study),” daily painting #42, oil on panel, 6” x 8,” 2019.

Norfolk Street

It was our first nice fall day of the year, or so it seemed, so I finally got a chance to search for some fall colors to paint. I found some muted ones on Norfolk Street, in Bethesda. My ink sketch was promising, but I dithered too long with the oil painting, and by the time I had settled on a composition, everything was basically in shadow. It’s a lot easier to convey form when things have both a light side and a shadow side! So this is one case in which I prefer my 5-minute sketch to my 3-hour painting.

Geoff Watson, “Norfolk Street,” ink on paper, 5” x 8,” 2018.

Geoff Watson, “Norfolk Street,” oil on panel, 16” x 20,” 2018.