Philadelphia Museum of Art (Greeting Cards)

Description

A piece of Art itself with its grand architecture, the Philadelphia Museum of Art resides in Center City. The infamous “Rocky Steps” are set just off to the side of this painting. I thought it would be a great tribute to the Museum to paint the building that houses thousands of Painting Masterpieces! Exploring a new technique, I used two separate mediums to create this work. Over top of my initial sketch, I used oil pastels to lay down the first colors. Oil pastels allow you to remove layers and leave a “scrafitto” scratching effect with a palette knife. I used the knife to score some important straight lines, then applied workable fixative to allow the next layer. I switched to soft and hard pastels and really finished up the painting till there was almost no tooth left in the paper. Because the oil pastel was down first, I was able to scrape through the soft pastel, which is something you cant normally do with the soft (chalk/fine clay) pastels. Lovely effect, and I will likely do it again in the near future.

Own this original today and proudly display an icon of the city on your wall!