Afternoon Light

When I drive a couple of miles north to get to the freeway, there's a view I love. It's a fairly unobstructed view of the mountains with the lithe limbs of a eucalyptus silhouetted in front. When the sun is low in the afternoon, the sky turns rosy and casts a glow on the scene.

There's also a supermarket there, a bank, a parking lot, and very tall street lights, not to mention the distant jumble of unrelated foliage and structures I can't make out. There isn't really a place to stand and paint either. It's a busy intersection, with only narrow strips of sidewalk. I drove up there one afternoon and parked in the corner of the lot and took several pictures from each corner of the the intersection. Eventually I came back to the photographs. I made a drawing of only the parts I liked. I worried it was too simple, and I almost added more. I edited the tree a bit. I tested the colors.

I like this painting very much. It captures the few simple elements that make me love that view as I drive quickly past. I'm going to submit it for the Calypso Moon Artist Movement landscape challenge. It's a 12 x 16 inch watercolor.