Today’s watercolor experiment:
I used to pass this Blimpie store all the time. It was on the northwest corner of 14th Street and 1st Avenue in New York City. Blimpie’s was an eatery that used to make submarine sandwiches (sometimes called heros or hoagies, depending on the part of US in which one resides). I never went inside Blimpie’s, not that I have anything agains the sandwiches they make. Rather I am a little bit self conscious about being blimp-like myself even though I am not.
Bicycle Graffiti
6″x4″ 140# Mixed Media Paper
I believe the building on which the bicycle was drawn was some kind of bike rental or repair shop.
The drawing was straightforward, with stark shadows beside the dumpster and under the awning. I ran into some trouble with the name of the shop. The yellow gouache didn’t fully cover the blue/yellow combination I used to generate the green color. Although the drawing of the bicycle looks smudged, it isn’t; I used buff titanium pigment to represent the repair to the concrete wall after the drawing was in place.
I carefully painted the foreground, leaving long thin areas for the double-yellow lines and the white lines that divide the road into traffic lanes.
Here is my reference photograph:
Bicycle Graffiti – Reference Photo
Again I like your painting more than the photo, and I remember a bike shop at that location. Same here with the Blimpy’s. Now we have a Jersey Mike’s Subs which are pretty good. N.
Thank you, N, that’s nice to hear! Also glad to hear that there is a new sub shop.
j
Since last summer when the Tour de France came to my part of the world, bicycles like this can be seen everywhere – people spray painted bicycles yellow and fastened them to public buildings and houses and they have just become part of the landscape. So Blimpy’s Bike feels comforting and familiar thank you 🙂
That’s interesting… When I lived in NYC, several times a year they would close the FDR (a highway along Manhattan’s East River) for a bicycle race. My wife and I would know immediately since it got very quiet (we lived directly over all the non-stop traffic). We would look out the window to watch the bikes. Glad you like the bike over the blimp store!
j