Help Me Choose the Next Painting Project

I have a lot of candidate subject matter, based on my own photos, for a new painting project.

I’ve processed the photos somewhat, messed with them in Photoshop and other programs, and then cloned them with a painting program or two to simplify the shapes and give them a more painterly cast.

Although the initial results often resemble an oil painting, that is just to soften the shapes and mix the colors a bit. I could go with watercolor or acrylic painting, or break out my collection of soft pastels. Or even mix the media together, given the right subject matter.

Here are the current images under consideration. Tonal studies and more serious composition will come later. Anybody who wants to pipe up and tell me one of these has more potential than another, well, that would be most appreciated…

This is from a local drydock in Ladner on the Fraser River delta. There’s a lot of old fishing boats slowly rotting due to years of dwindling salmon runs.

This is an adaptation of a photo taken in Shanghai. I like this meeting of the street cleaners a lot. The guy’s wearing pretty nice shoes and socks for a street cleaner… probably just to meet girls.

Keeping on with the Chinese subject matter, this is a Shanghai scene at night. This would be challenging. I’ve never done this kind of scene before. Pastels would work for this, perhaps with a charcoal undercoating… Tough to get watercolors dark enough. I like the abstract patterns in this, along with the perspective of the street, and especially the dark blue-mauve-purple colors. Photo was shot from a pedestrian overpass.

I snapped this through the windshield of my car one rainy day… The dog seemed to be used to the situation.

This is a real drydock, a fishing boat out in the middle of nowhere. I like that tree alot too… It’s got some Group of Seven boughs sticking out. I think I would crop this down and maybe rearrange a little, but I like the suggestion of movement in the foreground grass towards the tree.

I like the potential here a lot. The girl with the pink sweater and the hat adds so much to the scene she’s leaning into. I’m getting a Winslow Homer vibe… This is over at the Pitt River, a tributary of the Fraser River, which is still close enough to the ocean, although fresh water, to have a tidal influence.

This is down at False Creek, actually an inlet of the ocean that winds its way into Vancouver. Again, more an acrylic or pastel piece than watercolor.

This might make a good still life painting, although maybe the glasses are too much the same. A photo taken at the Seasons in the Park restaurant in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver.

And finally, another photo from Shanghai, of a yam seller waiting for customers on a busy street sidewalk. My wife would often buy the cooked yams to take home from on top of that barrel which serves as a stove. The photo has a lot of distracting cars, motorcycles and vans in the background, which I’ve tried to desaturate and fuzz out… more would need to be done there, while still suggesting the traffic behind.

So those are my candidates… My top three at the moment are the Shanghai evening street scene, the dog in the back of the truck and the pink girl by the Pitt River. I’m leaning towards the leaning pink girl…

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