East End Gothic

Langdon House 9x12 pastel, copyright 2012

When friend of mine found this charming little house and posted a photo on her Facebook page, it called out to me to be painted.  I stayed with her during the pastel workshop and she and her husband kindly drove me past it so I could take my own photographs.  It was early evening and the setting sun really lit the house in a wonderful way.  It's been bouncing around in my head ever since, while I continued to work on other paintings.  Finally yesterday I couldn't resist any longer.

Trying something new, I packed up my pastels and got it started while sitting in the car during my son's soccer practice.  It was a bit cramped, the lighting wasn't right, and I got pastels all over my lap. The entire house ended up a bit crooked on the paper, but I was able to compensate for it a bit with some careful cropping and then spent some time this morning straightening lines and reworking shadows and highlights.  I rarely paint houses - there are too many straight lines to deal with - but this one has me rethinking that aversion.

The house, called the Langdon House, dates to 1855 and is near the Cincinnati neighborhood of East End.  As one of the few remaining Steamboat Gothic houses in the Cincinnati area, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  It even has its own entry on Wikipedia, something I didn't realize until I was writing up this blog entry.