Today’s watercolor experiment:

I guessed which colors to use for my watercolor sketch below. The photograph I used for reference is in black and white. I took it in the early 1990s on one of my walks up Lexington Avenue in New York City. I used a fine-tip dip pen to ink in the curves of the ironwork in front of the windows. Fortunately, the sepia calligraphy ink I used was waterproof, so the ivory-colored wash I painted over the inked lines did not make the color run.

I don’t have a memory of this door surrounded by wrought iron curlicues. I think it must have been elegant. The patterned curtains behind the (ungraffitied) glass and the tooled vertical window frames are my evidence.  I like to think that there used to be a fancy revolving door in place before someone replaced it with the black doors. The graffiti scrawled on the door is perfectly appropriate for that canvas, however.

I don’t think the colors in my sketch are too far off. Here’s the photo, you be the judge.