Waiting for Sushi
8x10” oil pastel on paper

I cropped the reference photo close in. And when I did, it somehow reminded me of Edward Hoppers "Nighthawks" ( a painting at the Art Institute of Chicago)

http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/highlight_search?acc=1942.51&page=1&ArtistID=116

What I wanted to play up was the contrast of warm and cool, dark and light, and activity and waiting.

***
The reference photo for this painting came from WetCanvas.com member Weckster, in a WDE.

Wet Canvas.com is an online artist community. A weekly event that happens there is something called “The Weekend Drawing Event” or WDE. For the WDE, one person provides about 20 reference photos for people to choose from. The object is to see how much of a painting you can do in 2 hours. Then share what you have done and see what everyone else has done. Since members of WetCanvas are from around the world, it is a great way to find painting subject that I had not thought of or would not have a chance to photograph myself.

Here is where this painting was at 1 & ½ hours:

It took another 2 & ½ hours to get to the finished painting shown at the top of this post.