I've always been excited by the fact that this building was built as a railroad station. Some of my favorite buildings are old railroad stations so this was a particular delight to me. As part of their celebration of this anniversary, they invited 50 local artists to each paint their impressions of the building. The resulting paintings will be on display for the month of November 2010 and available for patrons to view and to vote on and to purchase if interested.
It was a unique experience to compose a painting of this sort. Brian, one of the owners, graciously gave us a tour of the building and let us take photos where we wanted as reference material. One of the features of the building that I have always loved is the large curved counter that is the original ticket counter for the train depot. It has been moved into the bar but I wanted to make it central to my painting. I also wanted to give an idea of the time that has passed in this building. (A history of the building can be found here.) Other great features include their patio with antique railroad and luggage items, the building's stucco mixed with coal dust from the trains, a few table tops made from old crossing signs, and the graffiti that has been scratched onto the bricks over the last century by waiting passengers (including the original Bobo the Clown at one spot).
After mulling over several ideas, I decided I wanted the different decades of the building to be represented with the people that used it in a progression at the ticket counter. Think how many stories walked through this building! Several hours of research and several rough drafts later, this was my final sketch.
The restaurant supplied each artist an Ampersand Cradled Artist Panel for Oil & Acrylic and I transferred the sketch to it. This would be a new surface for me and I wasn't sure I would like the texture. (Although I did put it to use later.)
Because I wanted to try to maintain a vintage feel to this painting, I base coated the entire panel in a neutral gray. Then I began with the red brick of the walls - both interior and "exterior". I made my own mix fairly simply in two shades and created a washed area before adding the grout lines. I elected not to add them all because it created a visual grid that was very distracting. There are a few vertical lines added for reference but not many.
Then I filled in the larger woodwork surfaces, again using two prominent shades. I wanted the warmth of wood but not to the point of distraction.
From here it was time to begin my characters. I had chosen a porter, a 1910 woman, a 1930s woman, a 1950s man and a modern-day woman to represent some of the decades the building had been in use. Again, all colors were grayed somewhat to maintain a feeling of history but chosen to provide some color impact in such a busy background. And I also purposely elected not to give them facial features or varied skin tones. Partly artistic preference (I figured that out of 5 faces, 1 would most likely end up driving me crazy by not working), partly historical cultural mix in the area. I haven't totally decided whether that was a successful decision or not but I do like that it adds slightly to the impressionism of the painting.
At this point, I also did some of the edge work. Because I was so tickled at the idea of coal dust being mixed into the stucco of the building, I added Liquitex Black Lava to the gray border paint. I also textured these borders by "patting" the wet paint with the flat side of a 3/4" brush.
From there it was on to details of shading and background. This was a bit of a challenge because from the reference photo above, you can see the impressive number of bottles in the bar. In person they add to the ambiance of the building but I didn't want the painting to be too heavily weighted to one side. So I elected to severely limit the number of items on the counter behind the bar. After they were painted, I washed the whole section with the same dark brown of the counter front to knock back the colors a little, and used the same dark brown to shade the large corner bricks. They turned out very well, IMO. I also added the Porter's logo to the table stand on the left. It's such a delightful logo and, in addition, gave a little balance to the black of the porter's uniform. This is also where the texture of the panel came in useful as one brush stroke skimmed over the surface became a plausible wine label.
One change I did make from the final sketch was to add a single light fixture over the bar on the left. It made a visual break in the double window, and added a lighter highlight to keep the eye transitioning through that section of the painting.
So that was my adventure into a historical impression painting. I was a little surprised by the amount of color mixing even though I'd kept my palette relatively limited because of the small panel size. I always enjoy painting clothes and fabric so that was a treat for me. All in all, it was a fun exercise and I'm please with the overall effect. It still remains to be seen if the diners agree :).
