Guggenheim 5 in the Guggenheim for 20 Years Series

In 2009, I decided to paint The Guggenheim for twenty years, each summer, from the same corner, on the same size canvas, with the sole variable being my style. This is Guggenheim 5… the latest of my recent futurist works, joining the Seattle Space Needle, Central Park South, Sutton Place, Welcome to Las Vegas Sign and The Bellagio.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10rkru_guggenheim-5-a-borbay-painting_creation

This very special soundtrack was scored specifically for this video by The Ambershift, aka, Nelson Downend, Jr. and Ahmed Mahmoud. It’s hot — amazing, love it, thank you guys!

For many first time fathers, traveling with a baby shocks the system… so much stuff. Thanks to art, I have a head start.

A blank slate… incidentally, the stupid black dot in the middle of these photographs are a result of a faulty iPhone camera. I’ll have to return this bad boy.

Orange wash and a careful drawing. Coming correct while drawing this building takes time, and a nice ruler.

Blues!

Dress for success… and take a selfie in front of your future daughter’s baby bath.

Criss cross.

Painting The Gugg with a magic hour palette. Two consecutive passerby opinions, “the colors are wrong” and “this is art because the colors are different from the real colors”. Crowd sourcing art advice ladies and gentleman.

Here was the inspiration… the building quite literally turns purple for a brief period after sunset.

The scene — I decided to let the water bottle paint for a bit. Worth noting, it was in the mid-90’s for the first three days of this painting, so I sweat a great deal.

On day three, they were filming 5 to 7 around me… Anton Yelchin was close by for a few hours, talking about not wanting to be a figure skater… I didn’t see Glenn Close, but I did make about four shots. Come 2014, I should be a mega background uncredited star.

It was here that I knew where the painting was going, which is a blissful state.

Beginning to make the light dance… for some reason, light beams shooting out of buildings makes total sense to me.

Twas a rainy day, so I took advantage of some studio time to sharpen up colors and cover up some street-painting related smears and splotches.

Did I leave the Hustler hat (thank you Jim) visible intentionally?

Getting much closer — I really let the feel of the building and atmosphere provide the inspiration for each mark. Some people ask me why I paint on location when I paint something this abstract… well, it’s hard to explain without sounding like an artsy weirdo. But I’ll try. You love someone in your life, right? The love is forever with you, but when you are around them physically, you feel the love differently. More intensely… perhaps, even in a way difficult to put into words? I like to feel the building I’m painting.