Alley Light

Aug 2009. Oil on Canvas, 33 x 41cm

After finishing the archway twins, I wanted to try a slightly more complex motive, and went ahead with an odd-perspective alley with lots of potential to play with lights and shadows.

Alley Light

Alley Light started with a basic sketch directly on the canvas and evolved slowly, detail by detail – a mistake it took me a while to realize. In fact, I repeated it on at least the following two paintings.

It is not that the end result is necessarily worse because of it, but it makes it difficult to keep a sense of direction, and I at least ended up with a variation in detail and color that was maybe not entirely what I had planned.

Of course, sometimes that is a large part of the fascination with painting – seing a real world image emerge from what is merely a hazy idea.