Beatty Street, 36″ x 36″ Acrylic on Canvas, in progress. Follow the steps as I paint this view facing north-east along the 500 block of Beatty Street in Vancouver, BC.
Posted on August 31, 2020 by Leonard Rooney - Artwork in Progress
Beatty Street, 36″ x 36″ Acrylic on Canvas, in progress. Follow the steps as I paint this view facing north-east along the 500 block of Beatty Street in Vancouver, BC.
Starting another street scene, this time a larger, 36 inch square, white canvas. I’m starting right in, drawing and painting at the same time, mainly because I like using my flat chisel brushes to help render the architectural features with consistent widths where needed.
Continuing to draw and block in the scene. It’s nice having a holiday weekend to get started on this, the upper floors on high rise buildings are always so slow and tedious to work on, it helps to have uninterrupted time with good music and podcasts.
Another 12 hours on the buildings, so just for the first rough pass, it’s looking like 8-9 hrs per building. It feels like it’s going quicker. The second pass will likely be a grind.
One of the main reasons I’m painting this scene is that this row of early 1900’s textile warehouses on the 500 block of Beatty St somehow always reminded me of the Led Zeppelin Physical Graffiti album. So I was playing that record on a loop last night as I worked.
I’m now finished blocking in the row of Beatty St. buildings and will be moving on to the building at the end which faces Pender St. I used to rent a studio at 702-518 Beatty, which is the gold/sandstoneish building. My unit can be seen at the top edge of this composition, middle window. Cheap rent back in the mid to late ‘80s— only $800/mo for 800 sq ft with a great view of the city and harbour. The entire block was gentrified in the ‘90s and all those old warehouses where converted into very expensive condos.
I’ve now blocked in all the buildings and can now begin drawing in the cars and street details, followed by the tree(s).
Another 8 hours drawing and blocking in the cars. I always like working on cars they’re a welcome break from the more procedural, repetitive, work on the buildings. The cars offer reflective surfaces, lights and curved shapes—what’s not to like 😁.
Another 9 hours and I decided I was having too much fun with the cars so I’ll save those til the end. Instead I blocked in the rest of the street and the tree trunks and then moved on to the second pass over the buildings, starting with the Mainland/Vancouver Warehouses Ltd joint venture building (1907) on the right edge, adding colour depth and brick details. For now, my roughed in main tree trunk is looking a bit lumpy, kind of like a weird green melting candle from another planet. Also the perspective on my new brickwork has gone a little wonky down near the bottom. There’s always problems to be fixed, I’ll just work them out as I go. I am, however, happy with my progress despite being busy with a number of other projects, sticking to a schedule of at least 2-3 hours of painting per day, for now.
Work on this project has slowed down because of other work projects, but I have been nudging, pushing it along whenever I have time. I’ve actually added another 25 hours, but at this stage, it barely seems to move the dial—the canvas doesn’t appear much different than my last post. It’s because I’m basically just adding a second coat to areas while tightening up the drawing and details. I’ve also been jumping around the canvas to keep things interesting, but also to to work out the colour and texturing on the buildings. I like to work on a surface and then jump to something else while it drys out. I find it forever extraordinary just how much paint colour can change from wet to dry. Not that I get too hung up on it. Still a month or more to go.
Another 34 hours spent mostly on the top floors, which is the bulk of the work on this piece. After a few more areas of detail, I’ll be able to move on to finishing the bottom floors, then onto the trees and cars, all of which will go much faster. Work on those top floors, with all those windows, is so time consuming and gets to be so boring. I’m very glad to be almost through it all. I figure I’m now 80% complete on the entire piece. Still a few more weeks to go but what’s left will be much more interesting and fun. My two favourite parts of a painting like this: the beginning and the end : )
Another 32 hours. I thought I was done with the top floors of the buildings but I ended up glazing on some more faux brick texture, which I’m now quite happy with. The building at the far left, the 1911 Duncan Building on Pender Street, is now done, including tree branches and I’m now starting to paint the tree branches in over the 1912 Sun Tower (originally named the World Building) and the gold brick 1911 Storey & Campbell Warehouse building. The last 3 buildings are the 1906 cream coloured Bowman Block, The 1912 Crane Building (of Crane Bathroom fixtures fame) and the 1907 Mainland/Vancouver Warehouses Ltd/CPR building. All six buildings are now over 100 years old.
Despite a short holiday and ongoing design and website work, I’ve pushed this project forward with another 26 hours of work, mostly on trees. The buildings are very close to being finished now and I think I’m roughly at the 85% mark on finishing the entire piece. A bit more work on trees and then onto the cars and road surface.
Another 26 hours and I begin to draw and block in the remaining cars and street surface. I’ve also been spending time building up the detail on the foreground tree trunk. When a piece takes this long, it’s always a great opportunity to learn more about what you’re painting, and for months now I’ve been trying to identify the trees in this scene. The City of Vancouver has over 30 species of trees planted along its streets, so it took some detective work. In the end, it turns out ‘there’s an app for that,’—VanTrees. So, in the front, there’s two Thornless Honey Locust. Across the street, to the corner, are European Hornbeams, and at end of the street, on the far side of Pender, is a single Pin Oak. A friend, Fi, points out that the mossy tree trunks are a great reminder that Vancouver is still a rain forest.
+18 hours. Getting very close now. The cars are mostly done, just a few more touches. Still to come is finishing up the foreground trees and the road surface. Mostly, I want to feel the bark and moss on those trees, so maybe another 18 to 24 hours of detailing to go.
Done! 🏁🍺😊. Next I’ll be doing a few home improvements, so I won’t have room to work on any large paintings for a while, but I will try to fit a few smaller works in. Thanks everyone for following along!