The Yellow Sweater, 12 inches by 16 inches, pastel on paper

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I haven’t been up on a rooftop in quite some time, but there’s something about being up and away from the madding crowd in the open air that’s quite different than viewing the scene below from a window. People in my imagined scene paintings are symbolic rather than depictions of specific people and represent the themes of isolation or solitude. The first thing that came to mind when painting a city rooftop scene on a rather dull day was the bright yellow of the sweater. Bright colors are so cheery on a dreary day.

I used a variety of pastels on this one, pencils for the face (about an inch tall) and some of the detail work, hard pastels for the brickwork and base layer of the towers, and soft pastels for the tar roof and sky.

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