Sketches and unfinished things

These images represent the beginning of a new series inspired by a trip to Cleveland. I was impressed by the variety of urban shapes and colors, and the associations they conjured up. After the recent election season, with talk of heartland, industry that built America, and diversity, I was where the multitude of diversified industries, small and large thrived and withered. Carl Sandburg’s poetry resonated, and memories of my recent visit to the George Bellows retrospective came to mind. We blew in and out in a whirlwind, couldn’t stop to sketch or photograph, so I came home with only my memories and a few sketches from the moving car. Never the less, I got busy in the studio. first I sketched some rough memories with charcoal. Then I tried out some small acrylic compositions, and some larger oil starts. I made a trip to Syracuse to study and photograph the intertwining highways, I81 and 690, around Almond Street. That led to some pen and ink wash studies.