I’ve always been a fan of Futurism, twilight and magnificence of Manhattan… so I decided to combine all three for my first major painting of 2013. The result: Sutton Place at Twilight… a magical intersection where the 59th Street Bridge startlingly appears between buildings.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxajm5_sutton-place-at-twilight-by-borbay_creation

Here is a month of work in just under 90 seconds, set to the sweet sound of The Rotaries…

This source image was taken at 30 Sutton Place (a Candela building) on a bone chilling night, during a long walk with fellow artist Paul Zepeda. And now, on to the blow-by-blow recap, one photo at a time.

I’m a big fan of a complementary color wash… hence the Rothko-esque nexus.

Getting down to business with the preliminary drawing and some steady blues.

Beginning to define the shadows…

Mixing complementary colors to create rich, mossy mid-tones.

This painting took me the entire series of The Sopranos to create… here is Dr. Melfi making an insight about compositional tension.

Now, it’s a race to cover the under painting…

Beginning with light vectors projecting from the bridge.

Shooting lights from windows and street lights… several of these initial beams would become a casualty of progress.

Populating with purples… few would survive.

Creating a teal swatch of light that spans the awning…

Here is ‘My Egypt’ by Charles Demuth, one of my many inspirations for this piece… including his Figure Five in Gold, which I took a crack at many years ago.

Painting the sidewalk, beginning to find my way, blending slightly modified tones on repeat.

Decided to bring a slight greenish hue to the sky…

Holiday lights adorning the bushes.

Focused on light play.

Getting down to the final details… a darkness in the sky, calculated light projection from the tram.

And complete — Sutton Place at Twilight. This is my first large-scale painting of 2013.