Vantage Point: Step 7

My intention with this painting is to focus on the figure, and to spend as little time with the background as possible. However, I have a tendency to get very involved in background details. I decided to force the issue by putting away all of my smaller brushes. I worked as quickly as I could, painting just enough detail to capture the basics of the building. I had planned on simplifying the reflections in the glass quite a bit, but as I got going I found I really liked the effect of the reflections superimposed over the interior of the building, and so I kept most of it. The scrap photographs were taken in front of the Salt Lake City library, and you can just make out some of the rows of books in the painting.
As anticipated, the trickiest part was painting right up to the figure without any overlapping. Finally all that practice staying inside the lines with my crayons as a kid is paying off. Of course, the really cool crayon sets come with a sharpener for the detail-oriented seven-year-old, and I was forced to break into my small-brush stash to do most of this careful work.
Tags: Bryan Larsen, Vantage Point

