A few years ago I made a trip by car through a portion of the Northeast. My purpose was to stop in several of the old industrial cities, especially the steel mill towns, and make a series of photographs for use as the basis for a series of paintings. My ultimate destination was Chicago, and that town more or less combined, but in a larger and more dramatic way, the visual interest of all the other cities.
What interested me were the views in the outskirts of the city, beyond the suburbs, with that combination of interstate highway, and crumbling industrial ruins.
This drawing is no particular view, and is not drawn from a photograph. It is a memory of a place on the interstate just North of Gary Indiana where you begin to catch glimpses of the city in the distance.
For a sense of design in this drawing I should credit Rembrandt, and the other Dutch masters who invented the composition called the Dutch Landscape, which consists of about two thirds sky and one third earth. The idea of this subject matter however, is my own.
This drawing measures 2.125” x 8.5”. It is drawn on tinted cold press watercolor paper with red wax pencil and white chalk highlights. It is signed with an R on the front and full signature and date on the back Richard Britell July 26, 2001.
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