The Cat and the Barometer

10" x 8" watercolor on 140 lb. on Fabriano Artistico Hot press paper

I am endlessly fascinated by this apartment building.  It's cheap living.  It appears that college kids and single professionals live here, judging from the folks wandering in and out as I painted.  There's a dumpster right out there in the front.  Nothing exceptional about it.

But to me there is the strong geometry, the shape of the building against the sky, the outside stairs, the column of windows lined with brick and vertical design, the open hallways, the grand field of white, and the undersized door.  The dumpster also contributes to the strong diagonal, I think.

And at a certain time in the morning, oh, 7:30 a.m or so - the shadows.

I did take a few liberties.

I added a cat.

What is that cat so interested in?  The building?  Is she a feline achitect?!

Nah.  Do you know?

[Some of you may be thinking, How do you know the cat is a she?  The answer:  Why I invented her, of course!  She is what I say she is!]

And the leaves.  I saw some leaves on a sidewalk elsewhere, and thought that was just what the scene needed.

I changed the trees - didn't like the trees that were there.  Ain't art wonderful?

I tackled this building once before - in an ink and watercolor sketch.  It was in mid-2009, and you can see it here (there's a popular little story in that post, by the way).  That post was a few months after the drawing and I said that I thought I could draw it better even then.  Wil, of Carving Paper, commented at the time, "You should have drawn a new image of the same scene to see how you might have interpreted now versus then."

Well, Wil, I never forgot, and now I've done it.

Maybe this building should be my barometer - maybe I should paint it every 2 years or so until the day when, leaning unsteadily with my cane in one hand and paint brush in the other, my nurse is holding me steady in front of an easel.

I should paint until I am 100 I think.

Yeah.