Edison Collage complete

Well the collage is complete. I like the clarity of the colors in the lower right panel of the tavern. The other panels are a little more muted, but I think overall it pulls together as a composition.

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Some history surrounding these images is below.

The Edison Memorial Tower commemorates the site where Edison perfected the incandescent lightbulb among other electric inventions including a version of the electric train. The top right panel is of Union County Park. Travelers on the highway would have passed by the Rahway Poor Farm, which preceded the park. The center right image is of the bridge over the Lehigh Valley railroad bringing coal from Pennsylvania to Perth Amboy and New York. The Merchants and Drovers Tavern, built around 1795 on the country road to Elizabethtown at the intersection of the road to Westfield operated continuously as an inn from 1798 until the mid-1930s,

Edison Collage - Day 3

Another panel on this collage - one more to go.

Edison Collage - Day 2

The collage continues - the tower is done although I may need to darken the shadow a bit. I wanted to emphasize the light at the top, so I left it back lit, but I may need to darken the face of the tower and the shadow to give it more drama.

The other image, the top right pane of the collage, is of Union County Park. I find it fascinating that the land was preserved as a park because it had been used as a "Poor Farm. It was listed on a map from 1923 as the "Rahway Poor Farm". I haven't been able to find any background story about it, but there were other poor farms and alms houses in the area at the time to serve indigent people, usually from New York or Newark.

Satellite view of Union County Park as it appears today.

Same area on a map from 1923

Edison Collage - Day 1

First image in progress for a new collage - the Edison Memorial Tower in Edison, NJ commemorates the site where Edison perfected the incandescent lightbulb among other electric inventions including a version of the electric train.

The tower is made of concrete - I've colorized it a little bit to give it more interest. Edison contributed to the invention of reinforced concrete.

[DETAIL] To make the pear trees at the base I spattered on mask. Its actually the white of the paper but against the dark of the woods behind it looks like bright white paint.

Princeton Collage Day 3

The tiger holding the Princeton Shield- second detail from Holder Hall at Princeton. The panel will be located center right of the larger image.

Originally, Princeton's mascot was the lion—seen by the administration as the most regal animal. However, in 1867 the sophomore baseball team decided to adorn orange ribbons with black numerals. The orange and black combination stuck and by the early 1880s florid sports writers began to refer to Princeton's teams as the Tigers.

This tiger is on the front of Holder Hall, above the main entrance that fronts directly on the Lincoln Highway.

Princeton Collage Day 2

This is the first detail - upper right corner of the collage. Its a gothic something or other above the entry portal that leads through the building and into the cloister. It will appear to the upper right of the larger painting.

Complex Charcoal Drawing

WittPenn Bridge
Charcoal on toned paper

I've struggled over the years trying to capture the rhythm and form of the early lift bridges around northern New Jersey. I've used watercolor and, pencil, but wasn't able to capture the level of detail and abstraction that I was trying to achieve.

I decided to abstract the bridge by focusing in on a complex area that doesn't give an immediate association with "Bridge". To emphasize the form, over the steel I put into silhouette. I chose a section of the bridge that would balance the negative and positive space - the tension between the two leads the eye around the piece. I didn't want an all over composition that would create a pattern so I pushed the weight of the piece into the lower right hand corner. The lower right is primarily black, the upper left primarily white.

The longer you look at the piece the more the forms become somehwat recognizable -cross bracing, cables, stairs, railings, walkways start to hint at the scale, but at the same time it creates an unusual abstract image like an ink blot.

My only regret is that I kept the piece relatively small - 16 x 12. It seems like it would have more impact if it was larger.

Something to do on a sick day - still stuck at home with a cold. Although working with all this charcoal dust is probably not that good for me : )

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The WittPenn steel lift bridge carrying Route 7 across the Hackensack River between Jersey City and Kearney was onstructed between 1927 and 1930. The bridge was designed by Sigvald Johannesson, designer of the nearby Pulaski Skyway. Named after H. Otto WittPenn - a politiical rival of Woodrow Wilson and mayor of Jersey City when the Lincoln Highway was mapped through the town.

Holder Hall - Prinecton

Holder Hall was the first major Princeton commission for the Philadelphia firm of Day and Klauder, which, over time, was responsible for designing 18 buildings on campus as well as English gothic buildings on several other ivy league schools.

Construction on Holder began in 1909. A U-shaped building I've portrayed its west facing open side here. The main building was completed in 1910 and its 140-foot tall memorial tower was finished in 1911. Just before the tower was completed a small dormitory named Hamiton Hall was connected to the main Holder courtyard shown here by an archway through a magnificent cloister, which was built in 1912-13.

The Lincoln Highway passes right in front of this building and roadsters would have seen the tower from a distance. Woodrow Wilson - president of the college in the early 1900's, later governor of NJ and then President was a motivating force in the building boom that created these buildings. He would also have been part of the controversy surrounding the Lincoln Highway and its route. I wonder if he had anything to do with choosing its route right through the center of Princeton?

This is part of another Lincoln Highway collage - I'll be adding images of some of the gothic details on the building including one of the gargoyles on the front.

Carnegie Lake - Day 1

This is a new large painting. Still in the Lincoln Highway series. I made a short video posted below that shows the development today.

Newark Collage Day 8

Finished with this piece - I like the smaller architectural details - I probably should have put the park scene in the lower right, maintaining the ground line, with the architectureal details above. I'll keep that in mind for future work.

The Lincoln Highway passed through Newark’s “Four Corners,” at Broad and Market streets, claimed at the time to be the “third busiest traffic center in the United States. The large image is of the Paramount Theater, first opened as a vaudeville theater in 1895. Upper right is Lincoln Park, on the lower right a lamp from the flagship Bamaberger's store from Newark's heyday as a s hopping mecca. The smaller images are architectureal details including a column from the First National State Bank Building, the doorway to Grace Church, and a medallion from the defunct Central Railroad who owned the Weehawken Ferry that carried cars from Time Square across the Hudson River at the start of the highway in NY.

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Newark Collage Day 7

Third panel of the collage. Gothic lamp on the flagship Bamberger's store in downtown Newark.

Newark Collage Day 6

Lincoln Park in Newark, second panel of the collage.

Newark Collage Day 5

Newark Collage- Day 4

Went down to Florida last week - business and pleasure. Took a lot of photos but didn't have time to paint. Went a little farther on the collage today.

Newark Collage- Day 3

I've decided to keep the daytime color scheme. The bright, crispness of the colors appeals to me.

Newark Collage- Day 2

I've started working on the Newark collage. I'm intrigued by representing this theater at night, and have tried before. The current painting is the ligher version. But in scanning and uploading it I applied one of the filters in my photo program and ended up with a cool night time effect. Now I'm not sure if I want to deepen the contrast to those levels to creat drama.

Newark Collage- Day 1

I've tried to capture this theater several times and haven't been fully satisfied with the results. Now I'm incorporating it into another collage. Here's the preliminary undersketching for the piece - The theater is on the left. Upper right is Lincoln Park in Newark. Lower right is a gothic lamp from the flagship Bamberger's store in Newark and in the center are some architectural details of other buildings along Broad Street, which was the route of the Lincoln Highway through Newark.

Kingston Princeton Day 8

Yeah- finished! Here's the final panel. Finally getting the hand of water reflections.

I'm very happy with the overall composition - I think the 4 panels hold together nicely.

Some background on the images:

The original Lincoln Highway passed over the four-span rubble-coursed Kingston Bridge. The bridge, built in 1798 crosses the Millstone River near the historic mill building originally constructed in the late 1880's. The original bridge was destroyed by Washington's troops on January 3, 1777 to delay pursuit by Lord Cornwallis following the battle of Princeton. The highway also crosses the D&R canal, which used the adjacent river as a water source for this section

Kingston Princeton Day 7

Didn't warm up today because I spent an hour cleaning my palette. But I did get to spend some time on the final panel. I've got the roof and sky of the mill panel done. More to come on Monday.

Kingston Princeton Day 6

Center right small panel - the sign for the D&R canal. The color tone is pulling together the separate panels into a coherent composition. The color pallet reminds me of an old printed postcard from the 1920's which is the time period I've become fascinated with as of late.

I've limited my pallet to just a few colors that is helping to unify the panels:

Blues- aquamarine and cerullean

Green - Pthalo green

Yellow - Cadmium yellow light

Earth tones - Burnt Sienna and yellow ocher.

The blacks are combinations of aquamarine and burnt sienna. I'm really not using any red in these, but the next panel has a large red mill building in it. I was hoping to make it a brilliant red, but since these tones are fairly muted, maybe I'll tone it down as well.