Boardwalk Nights part 2

Today I put in a few hours at the Studio, starting the block sketch for the new boardwalk block, a wide view night time scene. The results are down at the bottom of this posting, but this seems like a good time to show how I got to where I am today. Above is an early concept sketch, based on some brainstorming of ideas and a pile of saved newspaper clippings.

I knew that to get a better sense of the perspective and scale of the open spaces of a boardwalk, I needed to do some direct observation. So I took a walk up to Asbury's and took a few photos of scenes that could stand in for what I had in mind. Later that afternoon I did a few quick sketches from those photos, with the one above my favorite.

The next step was to reproduce that sketch at the full block scale. The left side is pretty much the same, though I removed the clusters of tables. I changed the angle on the right side to make it a lot more symmetrical. I brought the drawing home with me to look at over the next few days, and maybe make some adjustments.

Most of the changes were made to the left side. The original building was a large, modern, upscale restaurant, typical of contemporary ocean front development, but I wanted something that had more of the classic boardwalk feel- big bright colorful signs and architecture that was made up as they went along. I wasn't completely happy with the whole thing, but the overall composition was working well enough that I knew it was time to start working it up on the block itself.

And that is what I did today. I want the final print to be in the same orientation as the paper sketches, so I started drawing it in reverse on the wood. I started on the right (formerly left) side, since that is the part that was most resolved. There will be many adjustments to the perspective, but it's more or less what I had in mind. The left side of the block will see a lot of changes, but I had to get down to Belmar for a meeting, so that will wait until next time.