Boardwalk Days part 6

With the new saint on hold for a few more days, I went back to my latest boardwalk print.  Almost a month ago I took advantage of a sunny day to return to my location and do some sketches and take some photos of the scene from a different perspective.  A composite photo from that location can be seen above.  One thing I noticed in the photo is that the controversial lamp posts are considerably smaller and pushed to the sides more.  And I knew this view gave me more benches on the right side to seat characters.  So I decided today to try out a four panel version of this view.  Below is an early version of this idea, combining information from the early May photos and sketches.

When I compare the photo and the drawing, I can see that this drawing is pretty accurate to the scene, and it does make the lamp posts less conspicuous.  However there are issues.  None of the sources I had with me in the Studio today could help me verify the exact locations of the two lamp posts on the left side, relative to the building and architecture, but that can be fixed later.  To achieve this new view meant pulling back, which gives me plenty of space in the wide open paved plaza between the buildings, but the actual boardwalk itself is a sliver about a half inch wide, meaning any figures there would be practically microscopic.  Also bothering me is that a huge swath of the panel on the right will be occupied by shrubbery between the benches and the restaurant.  That's a lot of the composition filled with an uninteresting block of color that is not particularly symbolic of boardwalks.  I spent a long time considering this today (with the recent humidity gone and lots of fresh air, our basement space was a far more comfortable place to sit around than my apartment), and at the time I left I was giving some thought to going back to the two panel version, with some modifications.

Meanwhile, Molly was also there all day working on various projects.  She added a few layers of silkscreen to a tablecloth commission, but the big job was working on a wood piece.  She had done some ink drawing on the large piece of wood, and today she took it outside to use a router to carve out large sections of it.  (very helpful when working this large)  This is the process she uses on some of her tables, but this one is destined to be a wall hanging in a new cafe.  The next step will involve some more traditional carving, but below is the current state.  The person who commissioned it actually stopped by on another errand around the end of the day and gave her approval to the progress so far.  Perhaps we'll see a more advanced version at the next critique.