Umbrellas

Over the years umbrellas have featured in quite a few of my paintings, whether similar to Friday's post or otherwise. You see a lot of umbrellas in a city, whether the weather is wet or not. Sometimes umbrellas are for shade, not protection from rain or sleet. In the last post, "Goodbye" had a lot of them. 

"The Pink Umbrella," oil, 10x8

Here are three "umbrella paintings," as I sometimes call them. In each the weather is different and so the effects needed are different. "The Pink Umbrella" is a rainy day painting, complete with smeared colors, watery surfaces and muted reflections. It was the high point of view that attracted me to this particular composition, but as always the rainy day was attractive as well. 

In "Sabrett" the weather is dry and sunny but our point of view is the deep shade of tall buildings. The composition was mostly abstracted, except the figure and the two umbrellas over his hot dog cart. A relatively narrow range of values helped make the muted colors more realistic. 

Finally, in "Union Square, Winter," the weather is entirely inclement--a blizzard in fact. The blowing snow obscures everything beyond the middle distance, even the light from streetlamps. Distant buildings are mere blue shapes in the white wall of snow.

"Sabrett," oil on panel, 9x12

I suppose you can lump these together as pictures containing an umbrella, but they're also quite different from one another.

"Union Square, Winter," oil on panel, 10x8