About Town: Main Street Sweets

A Love Affair with Color, Composition, and Brushstroke

To me, there's something special about paintings.  Likenesses are easy with cameras, we all know, and, of course, photos are often spectacular.  A painting differs in that it is a new creation based on reality rather than a capture of the reality itself.  It reflects some of its maker's experience in life, and what he or she has enjoyed seeing from other artists.  My paintings reflect my love of French Impressionism and dramatic realists such as Edward Hopper, Diego Velazquez, and John Singer Sargent.  It may be paradoxical, but a painting can seem more alive than a photo, even though the painting may not capture every detail "correctly."

My painting, shown here, depicts the family that owns Main Street Sweets in Tarrytown. It is a work in progress, nearing completion.  The colors and the light and shadow belong to a brilliant summer day.  The eleven people are painted from ten different photos of two or three of them at a time.  Only the two in the doorway are from the same photo.  Doing it this way avoided two problems:  getting everyone to come at the same time to pose, and getting everyone to look just the way I want in the same photo.

You have to be patient to do this kind of painting.  I'm still adjusting various things, such as a touch of white in the eye of one person, slightly smaller lips on someone else.  I hope when it's finished it will have subtle emotion that evokes some of life's complexity.  I don't mind at all taking a long time if I ultimately achieve that goal.

Ronnie Levine's work can be found on her website: http://www.rivertownpainter.com/