Flower District

Manhattan's "flower district" is one of the city's more interesting sections, with wholesale flower companies lining several streets in the upper 20s on the west side, between 6th and 7th Avenues. On some days it's hard to navigate the sidewalks through the palm trees, planters, and stacks of cut flowers that await shipment to the city's florists. I often walk through this area on my way home so I was bound to eventually find a subject for painting. This building is on 29th St., and I was struck by the unique lettering and the complex ironwork framing the windows. And as one sees in most of my paintings, there's that contrast between light and shadow, with the effects of the afternoon sun moving through the iron bars. In its original state the colors of the building were even more muted than shown here. I edged up the contrast on the window frames a little to enhance the visibility of the bars, while giving the whole work a little more color to begin with. As always, this is a 9x12" watercolor, with some bits of accenting pen and India ink to make the lines "pop" a little. This really was a difficult piece to finish and eventually took up about two weeks of working, stopping in frustration, and then attacking it again. I'm still not happy with the quality of the scan!!