Today was CoSo Fresh Paint day and I participated for my third straight year. I was feeling pretty confident this year because I only had to do an 8 x 10 scratchboard this year instead of the 14 x 14 size we did the last two years. I decided that I was going to do the view down Lansdowne Street behind Fenway Park. The Sox are on the road, but I got there and found hundreds of people on the road for the start of a 5k race. I found a seat out of the way, between a lamppost and a rubbish barrel and started working on this scene.
It took me until 10 am to get the scene sketched out in watercolor. I had to erase most parts of it at least once before I got it fairly straight. The pickup on the left and the 5k starting gate were soon gone, so they never made it into the final picture.
It took me until 10:50 to get the image scratched in so I could erase the watercolor.
This is as far as I had made it be noon, and I was starting to think I might not get it done.
By 2:00, however, things had progressed nicely. I had come prepared to color the picture, having mixed a batch of Green Monster green, and I was now at the point where I had to decide if I was going to color it or not.
I decided against coloring the picture and spent the last hour refining the values and fixing the details. At 3 pm I declared victory and headed back to the gallery.
