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A Commissioned Painting for a Friend Final Update

If you missed my previous posts on this project, here is a link to catch the whole thing. A Commissioned Painting For A Friend.

OK, this is it, it's finally finished. I have been working on this painting off and on for many months. I am quite satisfied with the buildings, architecture, and cityscape as a whole. I am not so satisfied with the people in the painting  So, I went back to basics and broke out my sketch books, and compiled the drawing below of people that I have sketched on the street. I used a Dixon Ticonderoga erasable red pencil for contrast.


I am looking for a real variety of people just to keep things real like NYC.


Me hitting the canvas once again.



You can see above that I am blocking in a new set of people doing different things. Most of these were taken straight from my sketches above.


At this stage, I am using a much finer brush to work on the detail of each character in the painting. The thing about painting is refinement , you could go all the way to portrait style detail, or just an impression of a person. I like painting in a very rough style sometimes with very little detail, but this painting isn't one of them. Here I need to exercise finesse and detail.


This is a closer look at my loaded palette. You can see now how different it looks from when I started this piece.


Wrinkles in clothing, color contrast and a little bit of fashion play a part in distinguishing one from the other.


Here's a broader view.


Blown out contrast so you can see the figures emerge from the background a little better.


It probably seems weird to paint a person over the top of heavy texture like you see above, but that is part of my style of work.



Mostly, silhouettes turned into something else.


You can see the people on the left starting to look more detailed now.
 


Along with detail, the characters personalities emerge.


Here is a little better lighting on the whole image now.


Everything is starting to blend a little better.




This is it, shadow, highlights and reflections. I added a few bright leaves that are reflecting sunlight in the trees.


Here I added some nice spring flowers and my final signature.


Drum roll please ... Finished.

Stick around for more, my client commissioned me for another painting.





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