Starting new painting: Girl with the Pink Umbrella

I'm am woefully late in posting about the newest painting that I started. I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and squeezed in a painting session with Dean on Wednesday, Feb 18th. I flew back to Seattle later that afternoon.

This is a painting that I've been looking forward to starting for about a year now. The original photo was taken by the oh-so-talented Miguel. He has such an amazing eye for photography. I've used three of his photos as inspiration for paintings now: Chinatown Treasure Hunt, Taxi, and now this one. I was going to name this one "CalTrain", but I think it may be called "Girl with the Pink Umbrella" instead.

The composition of the photo is just terrific, and we all know how much I seem to like the challenge of painting perspective! ;)

Here's Miguel's original photo and painting inspiration:


Miguel's original photo

I didn't have very much time paint while I was with Dean. Part of the session was spent varnishing my last painting, then it took some time to tone the new canvas and draw out the image.


pencil sketch on canvas

I think I'm starting to get a better handle on how to find the vanishing point, as well as how to use it to draw in the perspective.

I decided to outline my pencil drawing with grey paint so I could read it a little better.


outlined in paint

I didn't have very much time to paint, but I did manage to start putting in the rough ideas of lights, darks and color.


end of session one

I'm really excited to continue with this painting. Unfortunately, I don't have plans to be back in SF for a while, so it'll have to wait!