The challenge is complete!

Well I set out to do 3 paintings in 2 days- in the end I did 2 paintings in 3 days, not too shabby!

The lights are much brighter (Downtown), acrylic on canvas, 2014

The lights are much brighter (Downtown), acrylic on canvas, 2014

This first painting is of downtown New Britain, my hometown. This is the intersection of Main St, Chestnut St, and Arch St. The building on the left is Trinity-on-Main where I worked for several years. I really wanted to have very intense colors on this one, I worked a lot of wet into wet and went with a big Van Gogh influence.  New Britain's colors are red and gold so I definitely wanted to work those into the overall scheme. 

Krakow Jazz Cafe, 2014, acrylic on panel

Krakow Jazz Cafe, 2014, acrylic on panel

I have had this painting in the queue for some time. I did a drawing at a cafe in Market Square in Krakow Poland one afternoon while they were having a free jazz concert on a sunny day and have been meaning to paint it for past 2 years. I would say this painting is a little more Matisse inspired as I tried to play up patterning. The buildup of paint is also thinner than the other painting. I tried to be more aware of layering - for instance I painted the umbrellas on the right bright pink first and after it dried painted a think coat of white so that there would still be a little pink shading peeking through.