Croke Park, also known as Whitey's, is a bar located on Broadway Street in South Boston and it is a place that can be difficult to find. It is a truly great and special place with people from all walks of life. I am among many loyal patrons of this superb dive. It has been called the best dive bar in Boston & Esquire Magazine decided it was one of the 18 Best Bars in America in 2016. I went there for the free pool and found so much more.
I had the pleasure of painting 18 of Croke Park's patrons, staff and talented pool players. It was quite a process that involved me, tracking down people who wanted to participate, then obtain photos of the people involved, drawing the people from observation and also taking my own photos of these wonderful people at the bar itself! Multiple references can be so helpful, as well as getting to know the people I was painting.
A photo of me installing the mural panels...
Here is both the original article about the bar I had the pleasure of painting in...
http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/bars/a44780/best-bars-in-america/
....and a (newspaper resolution) photo of me with my mural, from the Irish Emigrant, July 4th 2016. This is an Irish Paper local to Boston that followed up on the story.
The process began with finding people who wanted to be in the mural, meeting them, taking photos of them and collecting reference images. Some patient folks let me draw them from observation, here are some of the participant references. From the expressions I was able to capture, I was able to incorporate more personality into all of these individual portraits.
The next step included pre-painting sketches for each person from those references.... So for each person in the mural they received at least one sketch. I used proportions and ratios when painted from these sketches rather than a grid.
I completed each panel in my studio in Boston.
The mural was done in three panels and on each panel there were six portraits, so once I had six people on board, each panel began.... here is the progression in order of completion.
Here is a complete panorama of the mural after it's completion... in February of 2016, the entire project began in August of 2015. This was an intense combination of composing photo realistic portraits with various light sources.
I look forward to sharing my next project with all of you. This mural is near and dear to my heart as is Croke Park and it's lovely patrons.