It felt that day like winter was never going to end. I was wanting to get outside and paint, but the wind was biting, and the slow, steady drizzle prickled the skin. As I stood at the window looking out over Grand Boulevard from my studio, I contemplated the scene unfolding in front of me and realized, I could do a quasi-plein-air painting from the comfort of home.

As is so often the case here, the conditions were changing rapidly. It was mid-afternoon when I started this piece, and the clouds and fog over the city were beginning to darken. The colors gave everything a beautiful, blue-green hue.

I started mixing colors and putting out a lot of paint, because I knew I had to move quickly. Using thin paint and ink brayers, I laid down the large blocks of sky and streets first. The skyline was fading in the conditions, and using the same colors, I blocked in the major buildings, along with the windows in the foreground. I then switched to a variety of reds to capture the brick structures. The main thrust in the early stages, though, was to capture the colors and feel of the weather conditions before they changed. The buildings are more forgiving models, as they don’t move around or need to take breaks. I could always work on their lines and details later.

This piece has been in two different public displays, and the feedback has been very interesting to me. One thing mentioned is that the perspective is somewhat unusual, painted out of a fifth-floor window. Plein air artwork is usually created at ground level, or from only a slightly elevated position. A second is that the perspectives result in a triangle that emerges out of rectangles. Finally, I’ve been told that the middle portion, isolated from the entire piece, would make a compelling abstract on its own.