john-tebeau-art-dev

Five Steps in Painting a Central Park Scene

Here’s a quick look into the process I used to make a recent acrylic painting. In this case, it’s a 16-inch by 20-inch, somewhat cartoonish representation of Manhattan as seen from the corner of Central Park. Standing above Wollman Rink in early winter looking southeast, to be exact.

The first thing is to snap a picture and draw from that, or go right to the spot, whip out a sketch pad, and draw directly from life. The latter is better (has more personality, and as Sam Jackson said in Pulp Fiction “personality goes a long way.”), but I like to work in a quiet space with fewer distractions, so I drew from a picture. Once the sketch was made on paper, I transferred it using a good old Sharpie onto a stretched, primed, 1.5-inch thick canvas already painted with a base coat of warm, light grey.

Phase One
Phase One

Then I started blocking the light and dark hues….

Phase two
Phase Two

And some details plus more blocking….

Phase three
Phase Three

And more details and fifty or so shades of grey….

Phase Four
Phase four

And then the final touches and the black lines that I love. Voilà! Fine cartoon art.

"SECP" (South East Central Park) © 2013 John Tebeau
“SECP” (South East Central Park) © 2013 John Tebeau

 

I wanted it to have a mid-century feel to it, like the backgrounds of the 1950s and ’60s Bugs Bunny cartoons. A little loose, a little distorted. Not quite as much as below, but some.

Classic Looney Tunes background art
Classic Looney Tunes background art

(And a big thanks to Ruben M. for the commission!)

Bob Hope hat

 

 

 

17 comments

Gorgeous! I love seeing behind the layers to get a glimpse of your process. So cool to follow along, and the end result is beautiful. Bravo, El Teeberino!

Thanks, Rob. I want you to see the video of it, too. It’s not great, but I got it done. It’s on my artist page. Just posted it a couple days ago. Check it out and tell me how I could do the next one better!

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