Thursday, June 22, 2017

Berkey Crowd Scene

John Berkey's widow, Demi, remembers what it was like for John to paint the massive crowd scene in this Indianapolis 500 illustration.

"John hated those crowd scenes. One of the things he did to keep from going completely mad was to mask off most of the painting and work on only one section at a time. There was just no way to do the crowds fast. A piece like this took many days."
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See more Art by John Berkey (1932-2008) at Jim Pinkoski's fan site

5 comments:

  1. Painting that crowd scene would drive me mad too. I think, if it was me, I'd paint 20 people and then treat myself to painting a car before moving on to the next 20.

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  2. I would be interested to see an example of how that crowd might be painted impressionistically? Indeed, how would an impressionist paint the entire scene?

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  3. No problem, Sesco. Just google "leroy nieman indianapolis 500" and take a look at the resulting images.

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  4. The crowd in the stands and the crowd of cars on the track might be a photograph in this reproduction. But the green of the grass and the trees behind the track are the giveaways that it is a painting. He might have disliked doing it, but this guy could sure paint crowds!

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  5. John Berkey has been one of my favorite illustrators dating way back to my art school days. He created such exquisite, delicate textures with his brush.

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