My inspiration for painting parked cars began in 1992. The shapes of vehicles and the details of different car models interested me and I thought, what an unusual subject matter — something we do not pay much attention to but are a necessary part of our lives.

I designed this painting from life, sitting in my car with a large 22 x 30 piece of watercolor paper taped to a board on my lap between the steering wheel. It was pretty awkward. As people shopped and drove away, other cars took their places, so I made adjustments in the composition as I went. Some of the shapes overlapped in an abstract way, providing more dimension and depth in the design. I then edited and refined my pencil drawing in my studio and began painting, deciding on colors and values as I progressed. I do not copy from the photos. They are only a guide and I work intuitively and allow things to evolve as I paint. The drawing is most important, as it provides the framework for the painting. Sometimes as I work on it, shapes are erased, edited or changed, allowing for a stronger composition. I never know what the outcome will be, which is always a nice surprise.

In the first part of this series, I included some of the historic shops on the Centerville square in the background. Those shapes anchored the vehicles with those geometric shapes. All three of my first parked-vehicle paintings have found new homes in Baltimore, Detroit, and Phoenix. In my painting, “Valet Parking,” I combined six of my reference photos taken in 1997 and 2014. I re-arranged the cars from my photos to combine an interesting composition. I found that the older vehicles have a bit more character than some of the new models. I used artistic license with the colors and connected the shapes using the lines in the parking lot to form a zig-zag pattern, leading the eye into and around the painting. It is a limited palette of Indigo, Ultramarine blue, Indian Red, Napthol Red, Pyrrol Red, Transparent Pyrrole Orange, Lamp Black and Quinacridone Fuchsia on 300# watercolor paper.