When a Global Pandemic hits, and your trip to Japan gets cancelled… what’s the next best thing? Commission a painting of Shibuya Crossing… which is precisely what my friends in Montreal decided to do.

This 36″X48″ painting was a gift to replace the missed adventure. As it would turn out, the creation of this piece was also quite the journey… and was completed after two cases of COVID, a family emergency, and the re-location of my home studio to Borbay Studios & Gallery. When tackling a composition of this complexity, I find it helpful to break it down to large shapes.

With a warm under-painting, I began establishing the form with shadows… hand-mixed, RGB, naturally. Patience is the name of the game.

Making moves! With the shadows established, I jumped in with a series of blues and greys. When you have an artistic license (which cannot be revoked), liberties can be taken with building colors to create visual harmony.

Millions of people traverse Shibuya Crossing daily… which is insane. But, of course, I captured this during a pandemic, so we decided to showcase this well-traveled intersection with no people. To activate the streets, I went back in time and channeled my futurism phase… light play.

So many decisions to be made… it was fun adding some trees to the cityscape, a reminder of what existed before we humans left a deep imprint. At this stage, I began writing-up a final to-do list.

And with the final touches, Shibuya Crossing was complete! I want to sincerely thank my collectors up North for not only commissioning this work, but for their patience with the process. It took longer than expected — but I hope you love the result. Thank you, thank you.