Completing Beeman's

I've painted most of the top half of the painting, but needed to paint in the "Coffee Bar and Bakery" sign. I'm putting in the shadows as I go along.

The sign is done and now I'm putting in the window below, starting from the top down as usual.

Now I'm putting in the actual windows with shadows. Its hard to tell from the photo, but I think these are jalouse-style, which I will add details for later.

Okay, windows are roughed in and so is the siding behind the shrubs.

Then, the shrubs. I'm not going to put in a lot of detail in the plants, just using my bristle brush.

Shrubs are in, and so it the back fence on the right. You can also see that I painted in the siding on the right of the building and a little bit of the porch ceiling and grass around the shrubs. I'm still working my way down.

Now, I'm putting in the foreground, a combination of sand and old, crumbled asphalt.

So, foreground is done and painting is starting to take shape. I have left the porch for last. I think I've been putting it off because some of it I have to make up. I'll go back to the original photo and see how light I can make it –– to maybe see more than I saw before.

Well, that's better, maybe more than I wanted. I will do some simplification, starting with getting rid of the white "closed" sign on the steps. At least when a place like this is closed, there are no cars in the way of the photo.

So, in goes the porch paint, after I sketched in the details.

Now the porch is done and you can see where I put in the details on the windows, the roof and siding.

Now the front steps go in and I catch more of the small details and shadows where I see the need.

For some reason, I saved the newspaper stand for last. So, I put it in and did a last go-round on details across the whole painting.

Here is the finished piece, and it was done in time to make the trip to Florida with me. From there, we shipped it to the Felder Gallery in Port A, where it was restretched and now hangs. Someone out there will have good memories of Beeman's. Perhaps remembering sipping coffee working off a hangover while eating pastry –– or as Caty Wirth Shelton commented, "Best Eggs Benedict ever!" Beeman's may be gone, but this art will be around for a long time.

The very last addition to the painting was the words on the yellow ribbon that wraps around the coffee cup sign. It says, "Come home soon. Come home safe," in reference to our troops fighting in Iraq. I hope that happens soon.