I enjoy the adventure of painting outdoors and Lake Kittamaqundi in Columbia is a beautiful place to paint.
During the summer I want to paint outdoors every weekend and since I live in Columbia MD I can take advantage of the many beautiful paths parks and lakes in the area.
The scenery at Lake Kittamaqundi in downtown Columbia is lovely and there are so many views to choose from. This time, I choose the view of the sidewalk in front of the restaurants that face the lake. I was inspired by the fountain at the end of the dark shadow cast by the building on one side and the dark trees on the other created a very dramatic scene.
I set up my easel at the bottom of the stairs by the hotels where there is a lot of room and I would be out of the way of people.
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| The Restaurant Walk at Lake Kittamaqundi in Columbia MD |
I have some enabled products with this image such as prints, posters, greeting cards, etc. visit my Society6 shop to see the collection. CLICK HERE.
I started with an underpainting of blue to get the composition and the values right. My approach is to start with the background and work into the foreground. It is very challenging to paint the architecture at the lake because it is so unique and requires a lot of attention. One of the things that attracts me to the lake are the divergent lines that seem to go in so many different directions that you do not expect, but I found that I had to correct the picture several times to accommodate the lines.
In the background is the iconic bowl-shaped fountain that the lake is famous for. The red brick sidewalk leads your eye to the fountain.
The foreground turned out to be harder than I anticipated. The orange-red brick of the walkway was a difficult color to mix effectively. Not just because of the technical problems of the color itself but because the greens surrounding it would give contrast so I felt that I had to get it just right. I had to take some license here and there to make sense out of some elements but that is what art is all about. It is an interpretation, an illustration and a story at the same time.
I had to do a little bit of fine-tuning at home to get all the details in so you cannot truly call it a Plean Aire painting but it is still a wonderful painting of the lakefront.
A lot of wonderful people stopped by to say hello and offer encouragement. I am so appreciative of those encounters and hope to see the same new friends in the future.
If you live in Maryland near Columbia, and hou would like to see this painting before you buy it please contact me.
