Heatwave + new commission painting

We have a late August heatwave happening here in Chicago. A perfect time to start on a new commission painting in a studio with no AC! Part of my process for creating custom paintings is doing a lot of sketches and taking photos. Once I come up with a composition then I start painting. Here's a photo I shot yesterday while walking around in 95 degree heat.

Heatwave, digitally enhanced photograph, 2013

And a couple of sketches that I'll base the painting on:

Sketch for commission painting

Sketch for commission painting

Paintings and sketches

For the last couple of weeks, I've been doing a lot of drawing - mostly of architecture. Even doing just a quick sketch or two a day at home or at the studio keeps me in the creative groove. One afternoon I also went downtown to draw Marina Towers and the bridges along the river. The sketches have informed some new paintings I started. They're loose and a bit more minimalist than some of my more recent paintings - more immediate like the drawings.

Here are some sketches:

And here are the paintings I have going right now:

Skyline Giclée Print

A few weeks ago, someone randomly found my art online and wanted a print of one of my paintings. It was of Chicago Lakefront Skyline, one that after completing last year, I had it professionally scanned/photographed. This allowed me to re-print the image with high resolution as a giclée print on archival somerset velvet paper. This printing process is great when you have a high-resolution file like I did because it shows all of the brushstrokes and colors much like the original. Here are a few pictures of it in my studio before the collectors picked it up.