One of the things I enjoy attempting in painting is to try and capture and convey motion within the confines of a static image. This scene is from the Grand Boulevard bridge between Downtown Kansas City and the River Market, viewing toward the west. 

This painting began as a plein air piece. I set up on the sidewalk overlooking the freeway, late on a spring afternoon. The weather had been rainy, but the dark clouds were beginning to give way to reveal blue sky. Cars and trucks passing beneath me roared with the sounds of engines and tires on wet pavement, their lights reflecting from the pavement. When painting from real life, the first goal is to capture the colors. Because the light changes rapidly, it is critical to mass the largest areas first and mix the variety of colors that are present at the moment.

The cars and trucks are blocked in during this initial phase, but I snapped several photos to finish the piece in the studio from that variety of references.

One of the unique features of this composition is that the horizon is blocked by the walkway over the freeway in the near distance. It crates a visual gateway for the vehicles entering from the left and an abyss into which they disappear to the right. The natural and artificial lights merge, creating a warm glow on the pavement.

As Ferris Bueller famously said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

In this case, I found that light was traveling at the speed of sound. And I didn’t want to miss it.

This piece was juried into the Stems Plein Air exhibition in Overland Park, Kansas.

It sells in a black-stained wood box frame and ships free in the US.