An empty lot can be beautiful

I saw this view near the end of this past fall as I walked toward my parked car. The combination of late afternoon light on the tall weeds and stark shapes of the buildings surrounding the lot caught my eye.  It called for a large-ish canvas (for me, anyway!), and all I had was an old linen one that had a painting on it from a couple of years ago that I had worked on for months, expending many frustrating hours on it - it was supposed to be an ode to Matisse with models and background draped in multi-patterned fabrics. But, never mind. That painting was not to live on in perpetuity except perhaps if some curious art historian decides to x-ray the new painting a few hundred years from now... Anyway, I digress! I found this painting to a bit challenging. The areas in shadow needed to remain interesting and contribute to the sense of depth. Once I got the shadowed areas figured out, the lit areas made more sense. This is often the case when painting - "it's all relative".

In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed working on this painting, creating glazed layers to mimic the patina of the old paints and stains on the back sides of the old buildings.