Oil on Gesso Panel
18 x 96 inches (46 x 244 cm)
Although this was the first picture I started once I was on-site it was one of the last to be completed. I began in early September but it got too cold and windy by the end of the month. Wind is a particular enemy when you're outdoors with a painting this size. It ended up in the dirt a couple of times before I packed it in for the winter. I was lucky to get a few calm sunny days the following May to complete it. I am rather pleased with the way it turned out in the end. The perspective is as you see it when you turn your head through 180 degrees. I spent almost a week outside carefully plotting out the drawing that underpins it. I had a large stream of students out chatting to me at lunchtime and on the way home. They always wondered how I'd paint in the cars, and sometimes I wondered myself. Cars are really tricky actually. Try drawing one. They have a kind of tear or lozenge shape, much less vertical than you would think and the difficulties with drawing always stem from one's own preconception. Added to that is their shininess. And in this case the staff's predilection for parking somewhere new every couple of hours…