ArtistsNetwork.com 63dramatic lighting and an abandoned doorway where I could
sit out of the way of traffi c. I felt so happy.
A couple of minutes into my sketch, however, a car
pulled up in front of me and parked. Looking around at all
the available parking places on the street, I thought, “Are
you serious?” But I held my tongue. Th e woman who got
out of the car waved her hands in the air, speaking Italian.
I fi nally heard a few words I understood: “I have to park
here! I have to park here!” she said. “My husband is com-
ing home from the hospital in an ambulance.” She kept
repeating the lines over and over, and then she entered
a door across the street.
I sat in my spot, half-stunned, and decided to proceed
to make the best of the view I still had. A short time later,
the woman reemerged from her home. She didn’t say
a word to me, but moved her car forward just a little so
I could see better. My heart sank. I wanted to tell her not
to worry about me, but I just kept quiet. Th e day wasn’t
about me, and I wanted her to forget that I was even there
and to focus on her husband’s arrival.In this version (11x5), I worked on a sheet of gray Canson Mi-Teintes
pastel paper. I like being able to create the lights from the start. I used
a Pitt artist’s pen in white for the lights on the church and added white
gouache into a wet passage of cobalt blue watercolor in the sky. The
gray paper helped give the sketch a cool, somber feeling.In this value study (11x5), I used Bockingford 140-lb. cold-pressed
watercolor paper and Daniel Smith watercolors (lunar black and
Payne’s blue gray).