A weekend stroll down Madison Avenue revealed a building elegantly wrapped in an orange box. Returning with my easel, I decided to paint, what I later found out was the new Hérmes Men’s Store.

Thank you for the photo Erika.

I was initially conflicted – do I want to paint something impermanent and capture this anomaly? Should I focus on buildings a viewer can visit in the future? Ultimately, the beautiful orange and abstract nature of this temporary space won me over.

The first marks always make me wonder – should I be masking for straight lines? My gut says – go freehand – otherwise, I can take a photograph and paint over it.

Continuing to block out the composition.

Whenever you paint a cityscape, there are some inherent dangers – garbage trucks move mid-stroke, mail trucks park in front of you for an hour. The key is to find a spot close to a corner, ahead of the street paint, and close to a garbage can.

A few people walked by and took one look at my canvas and thought I was trying to make some abstract statement – it wasn’t until they looked up, that they realized I was copying “nature”.

Literally, four different people at different stages of the painting told me the garbage truck looked like a Transformer.

Orange and Green, secondary colors, living closely on the color wheel.

Starting to work the complementary colors throughout the canvas – this particular image did not inspire me to create a wash, which seems odd because looking back, I would have thought a full blue under painting would have hit the mark.

Laying in the shadows.

The light constantly changed. As you can see in the photo above, the Madison Avenue facade was the brighter side – as the sun arched overhead (incidentally, scorching my shoulders) the tonal planes of the orange building shifted dramatically.

Ultimately, I solidified the light at approximately 4:00 PM – and began to draw the abstract horses mid-gallop.

All that remains is the details on the street signs.

A completed picture on the easel.

And the final. I am impressed with the treatment of this building under construction. The iconic packaging of the Hérmes brand makes a powerful statement, particularly when blown up to building size and grounded on Madison Avenue.