April 11, I began to paint this image that I first posted to Instagram, after taking several shots that morning. As I was biking past this spot, where I had already taken a photo of the Paramount sign reflected in a puddle, there was some construction in the street.

A large steel plate covered a hole in the ground. It wasn’t raining, but fortuitously there was a maintenance man spraying the sidewalk clean, and there was water all over the street and sidewalk. I had to wait for him to stop so I could take the photos. When I crouched down, I could see the lights from the street signs reflected in the water on the steel plate. It was beautiful in person, and really the photo only begins to capture it.

I painted regularly from April until late July, when I needed to take a break. I started another painting, and ended up painting three in two months. It was a struggle to get back into this one. I was intimidated by the amount of work that needed to be done. As I work, the paintbrush I use gets smaller and smaller, as the details get more focused. Once I got over this, I was able to push through and get it done. I’m so happy I did!