'Great River Energy Bicycle Race' painting

by cooper on 6/25/2008 6:20:59 PMComment on this

Hello!

I have five, yeah, count'em 5 images for you today. I have been working on the first of the bicycle race paintings (note that I decided it's the 'first of'!) I wanted to keep the city scene somewhat intact and that included a bunch of trees, even in downtown Minneapolis. My concern was keeping the focus on the figures up front, and off of the trees. At first I thought I just wanted a green blur, but after looking at an image of a really cool Renoir painting, The Grand Boulevards, I decided my trees needed more (ahem) gusto. Enter the trees with gusto. Painting the crowd on the other side of the street happened pretty quickly--mostly just deciding where people needed to be standing. Now I am into the part that told me I had to do this painting, and I'm really having fun. I think this is one of those scenes people watchers come upon, where in a matter of a few minutes, you're pretty sure you could tell the life story of the people you're watching :) Here are the first five images, you decide!

I think this title probably needs to include the name of the race, but also something about 'between laps' because obviously the cyclists are no where to be seen :) Oh, and I promise to give the woman at the far right a head tomorrow!

Later, Cooper

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