Buddleiea at the Canal

The old Riggs Bank at Dupont Circle

Painting this morning at Dupont Circle -- that's the old Riggs bank, now a PNC, between Mass & Connecticut on the northwest side of the circle (for you clock people, that would be at about 11:00). The Sunday morning farmer's market is set up at behind the building and the yellow Sweetgreen truck is parked alongside the building. People were reading newspapers or just waiting on a friend (a la the Rolling Stones) seated on the bench that goes all the way around Dupont Circle.

I'm struck by the sameness of the urban scene -- could this have just as well been Barnes & Noble in Bethesda but for the color of the awnings? Yes, there are a lot of differences, but since both of those buildings are oriented the same (the B&N in Bethesda is between Bethesda Ave & Woodmont, but is also at 11:00 on the NW side of a crossroads that is big enough to be a circle), there's a lot of overall structure to the painting that recalls scenes set in Bethesda.

Small Painting, Long View

This is another tiny painting looking down the Potomac River from the Maryland side.

Tiny Paintings

These paintings measure 4" x 6" -- that's a very small painting for me. The idea is to have small paintings to use as reference for working in the studio on larger works another day.

Soft

I have painted this view of the Potomac River at Riley's Lock before. Today, though, I fought my usual temptation to enhance contrasts and instead kept the painting in a limited mid-range value, creating distance and movement by the use of warm and cool colors.

Trial and Error

I'm now into the third scraped and repainted version of this scene at Poole's store. I'm not sure I'm up for a fourth version, but I solved a lot of freshness issues in the flowers with the new "blue house" version, I think the sky is right now... but still... there were elements of the original idea that I'm not sure I shouldn't have held onto.

flowers for sale

I started to work on the painting of the store and flowers, but the sun was brutal and the painting just wasn't working. I moved over to the shade to paint the hanging baskets and flats of flowers from the other side. Much cooler, much better.