Bryant Park: A Panorama

Early on, I knew I wanted to do a 360 degree panorama of the park. This posed some challenges, like the fact that I've never done something like that before. Also that the perspective changes as you turn. Also that I wanted to draw it from a fictionally far distance away to get in the tops of the buildings. Most of these are admittedly problems of my own making that could have been solved if I had a different vision for the end results. I did a few sketches and paintings to prepare.

I did this painting in one full day my first week in the park. I wasn't thrilled with the colors, so I continued to do some other (quicker) sketches for color.

Here's another one of the fountain! This one was done without any drawing before paint. I wanted to get the color of the green-blue building right and it turned out Daniel Smith Cascade Green (which had actually been an impulse buy when I was buying art supplies for my residency, that I'm now obsessed with and used in every painting of this building I did) was just the ticket. This one is actually my favorite (though one of the least accurate) depiction of the trees in the park that I did during my residency.

Another one done straight-to-paint mostly for color. I was beginning to get a better handle on the colors in the park and felt better prepared to take on the 360 view!

Then I went for the big one! It's 12"x24". I drew it by swapping sides of the lawn I was sitting on, and fudged the corners. Then to paint it I set up my easel in the center of the lawn and rotated. It was great because when I was bored with a side, I could just turn! It was a question for a while whether or not I was going to put in any sky, both because I was personally waffling between wanting some clouds and enjoying the negative space and because every other person who stopped by would ask me! I ended up having some drips and things I really wanted to clean up, and I'm so glad I put in a quick sky! I think it helps the eye move across the painting better than it did before. What do you think?

That's it for my Bryant Park paintings! You've now seen all of them! I may do an additional post with my top five paintings, if anyone was wondering! ;)

*All images in this post belong to Bryant Park. All of the paintings are theirs and they will not be for sale on my etsy, nor will I be selling prints. I'm hoping the park might sell prints in the future, and if they do I'll be sure to post about it!