Bricks in the wall

The old urban subjects I am attracted to contain a lot of brick. Red brick is the most common. It can be found in an array of tone and a range of weathering and/or grime. Some bricks are more of a brown tone and some are a yellowish tan. A white brick became common in the 1950s and early 1960s construction. A good mix of these can be found from down in Greenwich Village and North through Manhattan. Further downtown to SOHO, Tribeca and lower areas of the island, red and brown brick are predominant.

Complicating this at times are instances where painted-over exterior walls are of a color attempting to match red brick. These can glow nicely in sunlight but are a bit deceptive, being cosmetic.

In my experimentation with mixing paint for these subjects, I always start dark and bring out the color and chroma gradually. Then painting thin and transparent. Not mixing anything brighter than ochre for as far as I can work it up. Transparent oxide red is a good red-brown to start with at these stages.

When the work is ready to brighten up, I will play around with the cadmiums (orange and red) and to lighten them I will use naples yellow. At this opaque stage, I might work with burnt sienna for brown variations. I’ll keep some vandyke brown to deaden chroma, and some ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson throghout the process to keep things balanced. I don’t mix the ultramarine directly into an orange or brown mix to avoid greening. It is used sparingly and mostly to help build shadows.

Variations of the surface can have slight variations in tone and chroma. And notice that the cement between the bricks will slightly lighten and desaturate the brick color when viewed from a distance. I don’t paint the cement. Too tiny a detail and too maddening to pursue.