Painting Process | First Avenue Minneapolis Minnesota

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay

When Erin booked a pair of tickets for the Minny-Apple, I decided to spend a few days capturing a marquee location. The destination? First Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Day time. On-location.

First Avenue is a legendary venue, 40-years strong, which has hosted just about every important musical act in history.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

It took me three days to capture this fine establishment in my architectural impressionist collage-painting style (deep breath) – but it should only take you about one minute to recap the entire process. After the jump, a stroke-for-stroke, blow-by-blow recap from the street of Minneapolis – with all of the dirty (don’t say I didn’t warn you) details.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

You will notice the billboard in the background is different from the final painting – that’s because a Droid landed and changed up my scene. Alas. OK, back to the script – a quick sketch on the pre-stretched canvas clear wrap to get things situated.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Banging out the quick yellow outline – pretty standard really.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Collage time. A host of New York Post headlines, with the inclusion of the Star Tribune Masthead and a shout to the Twin Cities. Did you know that Minneapolis and St. Paul are in fact fraternal twins?

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

While my initial under painting continues to confuse the locals, I will take this moment to note that I am not the first artiste to take brush to the facade of First Avenue. Artist Michael Birawer took his skills to First and the result is rocking.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Working my way around the color wheel, primary triad of yellow red and blue, followed by a liberal splash of purple nurple.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Hello! Big update shot. Lots of darks and oranges, two color cycles in, calling it quits for the day.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Day two started out with an outline (fun) and a run-in with an urgent street character (less so.) Now, this is horrible, and seeing is believing (at your own risk) – but I must share. Ten minutes after setting up at 10:10AM on a hot summer day, a potentially (definitely) high gentleman came shuffling past my easel. He Sinatra-smooth dropped his pants, deposited his breakfast (and various other substances) in a swift midair leap, lands in it, leaves a perfect footprint, sashays in two more leaps, wipes his bare ass against the wall, pulls up his pants and disappears. This whole thing took 12 seconds, but the joyous smell lasted a lifetime as the thermometer rose to 95. Thank you universe.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Cranking on that background, which holds a building I painted last year.  You know you have been painting for a while when you paint the same building from different angles.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Carving into the image. Making it nice, more defined, finding my way.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Really starting to tighten things up. Once the shadow was dropped and the light-time was selected, things began to make sense.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

The billboard said “Droid does Apps” but I thought “Droid Is Acid” was more apropos. Our brains are going to melt out of our heads over a game of snood on the subway. Mark my words.

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay Process

Check yo self highlights!

First Avenue Minneapolis Borbay

Bam! Done. I must confess, at first I was scared of the stars. As any artist will tell you, nobody likes painting stars. But, after a while, I came to enjoy my task of creating an asymmetrical cosmos.

Borbay Paints First Avenue by Tom Hessel

I was fortunate to have professional lens-man Tom Hessel grab a few cameo shots of yours truly in action. Check that unruly mane.

Borbay Painting On Location by Tom Hessel

Smiling, enjoying my day and recession tee – which was given to me by a guy while I was painting in Times Square last year.

Borbay Painting On Location by Tom Hessel

A typical scene from the streets. That lady in the green shirt is my friend from college, Alicia! She married my friend Johann, and they live in Minnesota with their four good looking kids.

Borbay Painting On Location by Tom Hessel

All smiles, with my awesome new hat from my awesome lady Erin.

Borbay Painting On Location by Tom Hessel

Feeling the scene. I truly love my job.

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8 comments

  1. Tom Hessel says:

    I love it! It was a treat to be there and watch you work. You have definitely caught the flavor of the First Avenue and that particular corner of Minnepolis in your own unique style. Also, I enjoyed observing the creative process first-hand. It was enlightening, but I’m still amazed.

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