Welcome to San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

So as promised I turned my attention to San Francisco for my next collection. Not entirely sure what compelled me to do this city next, perhaps its because I've watched nearly all 8 seasons of Monk on the trot! So a few of these landmarks I knew about already, the Golden Gate Bridge is after all pretty famous, as is Alcatraz Island. I've never been to SF so my knowledge of the landmarks was pretty limiting. However with a few searches I found some pretty amazing places. Most people I showed didn't recognise Lotta's Fountain, perhaps it isn't well known but I thought it was simply too beautiful and complicated NOT to paint! What a challenge that one was!

Lotta's Fountain - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

This one was also interesting - it hasn't got a speck of green in it. I do like to balance colours out; red, blue, green and yellow. I also have a general rule of blue for buildings and yellow for sky etc. But I couldn't paint the fountain green! So true to it's real colour I opted for a copper theme which turned out better than I imagined.

Others in the series include the cable car, I think that was my favourite part about watching Monk, the rolling hills and the long stretches of tracks for the cable cars, so iconic. Not sure how much I'd really like to live somewhere which is so up and down. I used to live in Bath and one great hill was enough for me.

City Hall was wonderfully symmetrical, perhaps why I tilted the image to make it diagonal - I don't like things to be too dead centre!

Alcatraz Island also had to be introduced some brown elements since I didn't want the stone to be confused for bizarre shaped buildings. I would really love to go visit Alcatraz but I couldn't go on my own that's for sure.

Cable Car - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

City Hall - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

 

Alcatraz Island - 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO

So initially I was considering Chicago next, however this time I'm thinking of doing a city I've actually visited and can add a few more personal anecdotes to. Barcelona might be a winner, many interesting buildings and landmarks to cover. What do you think?