7th Avenue Brownstones

Behind the Painting

I sat down at a bus stop on the corner of Garfield and 7th Avenue and immediately dipped my palm in indigo paint. I tried to wash it off in the street, but succeeded mostly in painting both hands blue.

People gathered behind me, waiting to be seated at the new tapas restaurant. People paced beside me, wondering when the bus would come. Two guys came up to me. "Can we see what you're doing?" I told them I was practicing for a workshop painting brownstones.

"What kind of art do you do?" I didn't really know how to answer.
"Like if I gave you that blank wall right there, what would you paint?"
A scene like this one, I guess. I’d lightly map out the silhouette of the buildings first, jagged line of cornices against a grey sky.

I'd try to get the color of the brownstones just right, a varying mix of red and sepia and yellow ochre and a little bit of blue. I'd come back later with hard crisp lines for the facade and the windows and cornice.

I'd lightly wash in the street, leaving negative space for the crosswalks and pavement markings.I'd finish with the street level storefronts, dark and bold, cars and people and toy stores and flower shops.

I gave myself an hour to finish. You get the details right when you don’t think too much about the details, let them flow naturally on the page. I was wrapping up when one of the guys hurried back out of the restaurant.

"Hey, you wouldn’t believe it, but my son just sent me this poem. He just moved back in after four years away at college and he’s not too happy about it. It’s about brownstones."

I don't remember the words but I think I got the general idea.

"Beautiful brownstones full of bumbling bastards bezzling badly. Busy with being bigger and better but those buildings betray blues and broken backgrounds."

Or something like that. A lot of angry alliteration. A lot of post-college angst.