October Walk

October Walk
Watercolor 2.5” x 3.5”
Chris Breier © 2015

The original painting is available, click here to bid in the auction.

I was surprised by the amount of depth that I captured in this tiny painting. After analyzing it, I realized that it employs numerous techniques for creating the illusion of space. The sidewalk, shadows, street, and phone lines all converge to a point as they recede into space; this is a common technique known as perspective drawing. Another method for creating the illusion of depth is to make the objects in the distance smaller than the ones in the foreground, which is how I handled the trees.

This painting also made me think about how it's tempting to remove power lines and signs from paintings, but sometimes they can be used to enliven a composition. Here they converge with the shadow of the phone pole to create an interesting zigzag.