Forth Worth Sunset, Texas, USA

On a recent conference down in Fort Worth, Texas I had the chance to do a small painting, just before sunset, of an old post office building, as seen towards the top right of the picture. It was awfully difficult to find a decent landscape scene, as the conference center was in the midst of a commercial/hotel area that kind of reminded me of the twilight zone as there were very few people around and I half expected zombies to appear at night. Fitting then, that I painted a twilight scene. The character of the place is summed up by this painting, the long highway, the lack of tall trees, the highway and traffic lights, and the bike lock up designed with a Texas star (on the right of the picture). And a zombie creeping up behind my shoulder. The colour scheme in this painting is a triad (three colour) of purple/yellow/orange, with accenting yellow green and some darker blues in the metal work. To punch it up a little, I emphasized the colour of the traffic light, which is pure red and greens. Another trick to make the colour scheme work, was to add some little yellow highlights on the bottom of the picture (the sidewalk, the road) in order to give the illusion that the sunset is reflecting all over. You may notice the lamp in the sky (on the left of the picture) has a flower-shaped burst of light coming out of it, which was done by dropping clean water into the sunset, just before the sunset was dry. The result is quite unique, giving the illusion that the lamp is producing light. I will be honest, that effect was a total accident, I was moving my brush over the painting when this giant drop of water fell down, and at first I though the picture was ruined. Anyways, sometimes the accidents turn out to be learning experiences. 

 Forth Worth Sunset, 5 x 7" cold press, fall 2008 (No. 1118)