In this new series, BOSTON, I have reentered the world of painting buildings, a motif which I frequently painted throughout the four years I studied at The Montserrat College of Art. For several years, after graduation, I continued to paint buildings, only now, the addition of organic subject matter made its entrance into my work. I found that the geometric lines and shapes in contrast to the gentle organic elements worked quite well and compliment each other.

In these two pieces, the viewer is invited to come in and journey around the beautiful historic city of Boston, and get a taste of the magical energy that can be felt here. Color and positive/negative shapes, along with a created perspective, will keep the eye moving around the picture in a pursuit to identify the different neighborhoods, where the old structures coexist so harmoniously with the modern architecture.

Boston

watercolor

When I began this unit of work in the winter of 2004, little did I know how involved I would become. This grand city, which has in the past, and always will, play a major role in history, is especially close to my heart as it is the capitol of my home state of Massachusetts. I visited the city many times to do small sketches of the buildings which I have chosen for their beauty and the symbolism of their importance in this happy town. After studying a map of the city, I placed each building in relationship to its neighboring partner. Poetic license allows me to leave out the buildings in between the chosen structures.

Because I really had no idea at the start of this painting where it would lead me, I decided to use a simple palette in order to keep the piece unified. Both compositions, although totally different in finished product, were painted using the colors aurelian yellow, permanent rose, and cobalt blue. In the very last stages, I glazed turquoise to give it an extra zap of light. This whole procedure was very exciting to me and it opened up many new doors which I intend to make use of in the paintings to follow.

While painting BOSTON I thought how much fun it would be to create the same scene but to turn it into nighttime. This was a perfect chance to play with colors that would capture the twinkling lights against the backdrop of deep, dark colors. I did a tracing of the first piece and transferred it onto my watercolor paper. Then the real fun began.

After finishing these two watercolor paintings I decided that I would love to offer these pieces to the public. In order to make them affordable to the masses I had Iris Giclee prints made of the set. This, for me, was a first effort in this direction and I hope to be able to offer many more different giclee prints of my work.

David Dalton from Delta Gardens on Boston Series:

"The paintings didn't look like a town, they looked like... a garden scene but with buildings instead of flowers... a garden of buildings."

Boston Nights

watercolor