The Tao of Walking Ridge

To celebrate the Baldwin Cafe in Lake Orion, Michigan (3010 Baldwin Rd, at the corner of Waldon) becoming a no smoking cafe, I offered to create a painting for the restaurant. The owners were appreciative, and offered to frame what I painted.

A wall and furniture in the diner style restaurant is red, so this formed a cornerstone of the color palette.  Along the way, the pale blue against the warm tones created a sort of art deco effect that I really liked.  The theme also had to capture the feeling of sitting at the bar watching the cooks prepare the food right in front of you.

The painting evolved as I painted it.  The original sketch was only of the dining counter and stools with patrons.  But the right side of the painting had too much empty space so the booths were added.  Then the left had too much empty space so the cook and grill were added.  There was probably more that could be added, but you have to stop sometime and I wanted to keep it simple and bold.

Baldwin Cafe - Brian Kelly, 2008 - acrylic on canvas board, 16″ x 18″

       - the Muse

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 8:58 pm and is filed under Painting, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.