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 My work consists of painting the interesting panoramic streets, marketplaces, and aerial views of cities around the world. My artistic influences have been Hopper, Church, Estes, Bell, and Close, to name a few. The question I am asked all the time is, "How do you do that?"

 

 When I photograph a scene, I use a Canon EOS 5D Mark II 21.5 Megapixel digital camera, attached to a Manfrotto panoramic head on a Manfrotto Bogen tripod. I take many shots and usually have the camera lens set for between fifty to seventy millimeters. A particular scene could consist of fifty to one hundred images.

 

 From there I download the images to the computer and use Photoshop CS5 to digitally stich the pictures together on my MacPro or MacBook Pro computer, which each has a ton of memory. This is a must when using that many photos at high resolution, especially if I use the RAW function on the camera.

 

 After an image is digitally stitched, I grid out the image on the computer and then transfer it to the stretched canvas. I use an Artfix Plyester Canvas P72U, which is stretched over foldable wood stretchers made by Syman Art Services in Davenport, New York. I proceed to project the image using a Dell 5100MP digital projector and to my best to match up the grids. It is not perfect, and many times I have to project the image in section, but the grid is helpful in making sure I get the image on the canvas in the right size and perspective. 

 

 It is now time to actually paint the image. I listen to SIRIUS satellite radio (tuned to the Howard Stern channel), and I work form top to bottom and left to right (I am right-handed). I start withe the farthest thing in the image (usually the sky) and paint things on top of that until I am working in the foreground. I do a very detailed under painting using round Princeton Art Series 4050 Short Liner and Loew-Cornell 7000 Series brushes, from sizes 10/0 to 4. My oil paint and mediums of choice are Gamblin and Winsor & Newton. After the under painting is complete, I go over the entire painting, adding detail and fine-tuning the image using Liquin Fine Detail medium. Liquin is used to quicken drying time and to give the painting varnish-like qualities. My paintings are usually quite large and can take from four months to a year to complete, depending on the size and detail of the painting. 

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