The first plein air painting of the season is always magical. The location? Duane Park, TriBeCa, New York, United States of America, Earth. The mission? To capture this TriBeCa neighborhood staple in an architectural impressionist style.

Our first order of business for this commission was to meet in Duane Park and photograph several vantage points. After cropping six potential compositions in Photoshop and a few back and forth emails, we decided on this layout.

Let’s explore the journey from blank canvas to an architectural impressionist acrylic plein air painting.

I’m quite fond of the shrink wrap sketch, particularly since I get to revisit my former artistic tool, the Sharpie.

Laying things out quickly with cadmium yellow.

Blasting the sky and foreground with orange.

Painting on the streets means meeting many people, including talented photographers. This shot was taken by Hasan Sarbakhshian, check his beautiful work here.

Blocking out the under painting. This is one of those “what the hell is this guy up to?” phases of a public painting.

The underwear is on, time to get this gal ready for the ball.

Starting out by defining the street lamp, which is really the compositional anchor point.

Starting to stipple the sky, something inspired by one of my recent Jamaica paintings.

Starting to carve into the buildings… I enjoy the imprecise nature of the hand, which is why I don’t go to painstaking measures to use a ruler and create exact edges. It’s really the impression I am after.

Another building, and this photographs illustrates how the shifting light can play a monster factor in plein air painting.

The buildings are taking shape, and each one has been created with no small amount of complementary push and pull.

Wrapping up the first session with a touch of background light.

Back out for another session… when you paint on location, you must be flexible to such elements as 18 wheelers blocking 20% of the composition for five hours.

Determined to start on the storefronts.

Storefronts blocked out, time to get to the background, the lightest point of this canvas.

Making the buildings dance at the turn.

Adding that secondary fade in the sky, while letting some orange persist… I love visual reverberation.

Beginning to add details in the buildings…

Sometimes you inaccurately place a window despite looking hard… that’s why you can just make a correction and leave your error. It’s part of the paintings DNA.

Bricks and reflections…

Adding the darker tones in the windows, which seems to anchor the picture.

Working around the canvas, starting to add the foliage in the foreground, as well as the wrought iron fence.

There is always a point in the painting when you begin to smell the finish, this was that moment.

Buildings sufficiently bricked, adding leaves in the foreground, dark first.

Another opportune photographer run-in, this time Matt from Brooklyn Theory.

Great shots, really captures how beautiful the day was, and how exceptional my posture is.

Now some lighter leaves, as well as the tan color in the building bricks and window reflections.

As you can see in the windows on the street level, reality can be quite bizarre. When you have constantly shifting light, interior light and movement, the windows become mini abstract paintings.

All finished, the painting in context.

And final. This was a great experience, and as always, I met some wonderful people. A special thank you to the collectors who commissioned this painting, I hope you enjoy living with it as much as I enjoyed creating it. Here’s looking forward to Vegas.