SOMA construction plein air

San Francisco is undergoing a huge building surge all about the city, with new office towers and luxury apartments going up everywhere you look, which is what brought me out to this location at First and Mission.  I think this is going to be Salesforce Tower?

Turned out all right considering I didn't bring a pencil, which would have been nice for tightening details.  Instead, all I had was a day-glow orange Stabilo pen that I got for free last year.  It turns out to be a nice tool for the under-drawing.  Thankfully, with a bit of gray and white gouache I was able to get some harder edges.

As always, there are unexpected challenges painting on location.  In this case, the crane started moving about ten minutes after I started, before I had a chance to note exactly how the light was falling on it and before I could make out some of the detail around the claw and along the arm.  Oh well!

I also mostly resisted the urge to tweak things once I got home.  Mostly..