I’m happy to post that Paris Passy Gate, c’est fini!  If you have been following my blog or Facebook pages I have been documenting the work in progress on this painting.  The last post I had all the block in completed and needed to analyze the painting for value and add details.  I hope you can see what a difference value makes!  There is a saying among artists and no one I’ve talked to seems to know the origination of the quote.  “Color gets all the credit, but value does all the work.”  This is so true.  You can paint something in a completely different color scheme than what the original subject is, and it will work if the values are correct.

My goal for this painting was to experiment with getting a lot of texture from the pigments and work with a grayed palette.  I’m very happy with the outcome.  I’m always nostalgic for Paris especially in the spring time, and wanted to capture a place in the area where I lived which is also down the street from the apartment of a very dear friend I met while living there.  When we met she was 90 years old but seemed like she was in her 70’s.  We met by chance in a cafe and she started speaking with me in English because she had been married to an American man whom she met in Paris on V-day after WW II.  From the day we met we got together almost every week for lunch and we are still friends and speak on the phone often.  I thought of our special friendship a lot while working on this painting.