Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Skydome, Toronto, Canada



 Painted in the mid-late 1990's, this one shows what used to be called the 'Skydome' but is now called Rogers center I think... I only actually went there once or twice to see the Blue jays play and also the Argos football team. As I remember it was very hot at the time, perhaps July, and the paint was drying very quickly. I had to walk around quite a lot to find this scene... in Toronto the view is blocked by buildings and apartments. If I were to try and paint this same scene today it would probably be surrounded by condos!

This painting is only 5 x 7 inches (about 10x15 cm) so imagine trying to capture something as big as the Skydome on a paper the size of a postcard! It seemed impossible...yet is still worked out, you really get the feeling of the enormous arena. To give the feeling that the Skydome was big, I made sure not to have any bigger objects in the same scene... if for instance there was a 15 story skyscraper next to it (which as I remember was actually in the real scene), then the Skydome would appear small. I emphasized the trees in the foreground because they made the building look huge in comparison. This is one of the advantages of making a painting over photography, you can unceremoniously delete anything ...including skyscrapers. 

Skydome Side View, 5x7" cold press  1996 (No. 0189)

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