Rodeo Drive #4

Rodeo Drive

9x12

Acrylic Paint and Gold Leaf

This is my fourth sustained investigation where I painted a building off of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. My inquiry question is "How can I use color and texture to concentrate on the emotions of personal landscapes?" For this piece, I wanted to capture the luxurious vibes of Rodeo Drive with the surreal feeling it gives me because of all the extravagant luxury shops, buildings, cars, and scenery. I focused on one store that I saw that had a lot of color for more of a composition and it was one of the buildings that caught my eye the most because of the bright mint green architecture. The background is dark for contrast and because I wanted this to be a night scenery where there are stars and gold leaf present for more of that rich feeling as gold is a luxurious item. As the building is bright already in real life, I wanted to also show that in my painting to capture the eye like it did when I was walking on Rodeo Drive, and I wanted it to look like it was illuminating in a sense which is why certain components on the building are outlined in white. I think it brightens the building overall and it helped highlight the building from the night sky, bringing in that surreal feeling I wanted to portray. The white outline makes it seem like the building is lighting up, giving that sleek and clean look I wanted. I used acrylic paint for the whole piece and included gold leaf. Initially, I wanted to have the gold leaf on top of the white outlines I painted but decided that the white look nice on its own, and I decided to add the gold to the sky. I think it blended well with the white stars I painted already as they also look like gold star accents. Overall, I wanted the painting to capture an unreal reality of a lighten up building to show how luxurious materials feel surreal because a lighten up building in real life is surreal. I was planning on adding the title Gucci to the building as that's what it was based on in real life, but I thought it would add too much attention and although that brand is an example of a luxury idea, I didn't want it to be the main idea of the painting. So, I left it out and I'm happy I did that because I think it makes the building look more sleek and perfect In a sense. I wanted everything to look clean with detailing to give that "perfect" vibe, following a surreal tone.