Hey Lucy, King Street, Toronto

6x6 oil on paper

The colours of evening or night are always difficult to portray. What colour is night? Night is all about reflected surfaces. It is the surrounding lights and nothing maintains its daylight colour. I have had a difficult time with some sections of King Street. The mixture of greens and reds and yellows can make for a mud colour, so its important to avoid too much mixing. The red signage resulted in pink snow which worked well with the cool green streetlights. I am doing small studies almost all the time now before starting a larger version.. I have wiped so many paintings where the colour has just been WRONG! Its much easier to make mistakes on a small study.

Evening strollers walk past the Hey Lucy Restaurant on King Street. Part of the "cow" on the building is visible top right.