Maple Leaf Alley

 

6/11/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Despite forecasts of rain, Saturday afternoon turned out to be 68 degrees and sunny – perfect sketching weather! Counter to my habit, I took a sketching walk through the neighborhood in the late afternoon instead of morning, and of course, the light was entirely different. I realized I should vary the time of my walks more often for new sketch opportunities.

This rare alley in Maple Leaf is a favorite because of the fences and trees casting long shadows. I started by making the top study but didn’t like the composition enough to make a color version. I walked only a few yards further south down the alley and tried the long, vertical orientation, which I liked better. The color sketch is the result, though I cropped it even more narrowly on the left side. If there’s one thing Ian Roberts and his composition tutorials are teaching me, it’s to crop more tightly! I may have gone too far in cropping this time, and yet I also like the unusually tall, narrow view.

The lower study is the one I chose for the color sketch.