Boardwalk Days

I still want to mount another copy of my house print onto a shaped block of wood (like the one currently hanging in Belmar), but the piece is done, so it's time to get going on a new print. Actually this isn't completely new, but the one I had been starting to work on when I put it off to take on the house project. It's the next planned boardwalk print, a general daytime scene, and I decided to try setting it specifically in Asbury Park for various reasons. To have something to show at the January crit group I had knocked out the above sketch in about 10 minutes, based on some photos I had taken days before and some collected reference materials. It got a positive response, but I wasn't sure that it was the answer. It's an effective composition, and certainly locates the scene in Asbury, and it gives opportunities to feature people on the beach. However, the boardwalk itself would be too small to differentiate any of the figures on it.

Now that there's time to work on it again, I decided to explore other options. We're in the midst of a late winter warm spell, sunny, almost 70 degrees. A good day to gather some more research. I parked at the Studio, and walked up to the Asbury boardwalk, up toward Convention Hall.

I wanted to explore the opposite of the previous sketch- a view looking from the Boardwalk out toward the ocean. This would emphasize the people on the boards, but we could still get an indication of sunbathers and volleyball players on the sand. I could include the part of Convention Hall that extends out toward the water, recognizable to anyone from the area. The above composite photo was taken today and shows what I was thinking. My biggest issue with this is that scene is somewhat unbalanced with the building on one side, and it gives us a whole lot of empty space across the upper half of the composition.

On a whim, I decided to walk toward the street end of Convention Hall, if only because I had never bothered to walk that way before. Nothing too exciting, but then I looked back toward the beach.

From my position I had Convention Hall just to my left, and off to the right was the old Howard Johnson's. The two buildings form a frame left and right, and unusual light posts occupy positions in between, breaking up some of the sky. The composite photo above gives some idea of the scene. I think this could work well. I would have to play around with proportions and such, and actually go back and do some sketching to get a sense of how the buildings loom overhead, but this idea has moved into the lead.