Live Painting at Augmenting Cities Symposium

 

Live painting at the opening reception of the Augmenting Cities: A Playful Path to Community inaugural symposium, hosted by Niantic and the Knight Foundation at the Oakland Museum of California to gather and reflect on how people, cities, and technology will evolve and be shaped through augmented reality (AR). I used the iPad Pro 12.9 (3rd gen.), Apple Pencil 2 and Procreate app to create this artwork. It took approximately 2 hours. I incorporated into the painting visual elements from the Niantic AR game Pokémon GO.

Augmenting Cities 2019, 22″ x 40″, pigment ink on canvas

Just as mobile communication and computing has altered the evolution of cities over the last 20 years, AR technology stands to fundamentally change how we connect and interact with each other and experience public spaces and communities for decades to come.

In painting the opening reception (above), and some of the presentations and workshop sessions (below), I mapped what I saw and, in the spirit of the symposium, playfully augmented my sketches with layers of additional imagery and information, each painting telling it’s own story of the experience. The painting of the reception included artistic contributions by attendees. The paintings were displayed on a large LED screen for everyone to enjoy watching the process and the replay videos afterwards.

Symposium Presentations

  

  

  

  

  

Urban Playshop Sessions


 

  

  

From program

  

Big thank you to the Niantic and Eventus Outdoors teams for putting on such a stimulating and interesting symposium and inviting me to paint live during the event.

Summit Art, Arlington, Texas

The artwork shared here was created during a three day company meeting at the Live! by Loews Hotel in Arlington, Texas. It includes a painting of the opening reception party, a painting of two sessions and a painting depicting the 100-year history of the company. All these artworks were created live using an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and the Procreate app.

 

Opening Party at Troy’s, Texas Live

The final image is shown at the top of this page and the time-lapse replay immediately below.

 

Sessions

 

 

The Company History

Below are the main stages of this history painting, reflecting the 100-year history of the company.

Fishing on the Wharf, Portland, Maine


iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Procreate app



The painting at the top of this page was created en plein air in Portland, Maine. It shows Makayla fishing between the Custom’s House Wharf (on the left) and Portland Pier (on the right). The tools I used were the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Procreate app. The time-lapse replay gives you an idea of the creative process, including how I started with a detail from an old distressed wall of the Custom’s House Wharf. This photo (immediately below) gives a sense of the scene (though Mykayla wasn’t fishing at that moment) and anidea of how much I reinterpreted the light, forms and colors in my rendition.

Below is another painting I created the following day from a similar location but of a boat grounded at low tide in front of the Portland Pier.

‘Art Meets Hospitality’:
Paris at The Barnes

I painted the scene at the ‘Art Meets Hospitality’ 14th Annual Summer Outing for Philadelphia area professionals in the meetings, hotel, and special events industry on July 17th, 2019, in The Barnes Foundation, a magnificent museum that houses the wonderful art collection of Dr. Albert C. Barnes. The event was organized by the Mid-Atlantic Events Magazine – many thanks to Jim and his great team and the fabulous staff of The Barnes!

The theme was ‘An Evening in Paris’ and, as you’ll see from the replay video above, I started off with a 19th century map of Paris as my background canvas. The tools I used were the iPad Pro 12.9 (3rd Gen.), Apple Pencil 2 and Procreate app. Guests were entertained and intrigued to watch on the large LED screen how the painting evolved from scratch to completion. I showed the time-lapse replay from time to time during the evening. Sometimes guests watched themselves being added to the crowd scene (some of them shown below pointing at their representations in the painting!)

Hi Jeremy,

Thank you so much for being such an integral part of the 14th Annual Hospitality Summer Outing!

We appreciate all that you did to make the event such a success and for being so great to work with. Your artwork was a huge hit — it was the center of conversation for many guests — and everyone was in awe of your talent.

It was a pleasure to work with you for this event and we wish you all the best with every future endeavor!

Best,
Isabelle, Hannah, and Shauna
Events Interns
Mid-Atlantic Events Magazine

San Francisco International Art Salon
June 22, 2019

On Saturday, June 22nd, 2019, I live painted on the iPad at the San Francisco International Art Salon and Fashion Show. The first segment of my iPad painting was in collaboration with modern dance choreographer Mariana Sobral and her eMotion Arts Dance Co. dancers. The piece she choreographed, titled Je Suis la Femme, was inspired by the famous painting by Botticelli “The Birth of Venus” (which is why that served as the canvas), and was a celebration of the feminine. It was performed to the magnificent and beautiful musical accompaniment of Bay Area cellist Hallie Marshall-Pridham playing Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G on a 380-year-old Baroque cello!

The second segment I painted was of Sascha Jacobsen‘s Djangissimo! group (Sascha on bass, Max O’Rourke on guitar and Jason Anick on violin).

The final segment was of the last dance troupe of the evening who performed A Vampire Love Story…”from dusk till dawn”, choreographed by Lucinda Melissa.

The artworks depicting the three segments are shown above.Below is the replay video showing the entire process as I developed the work through the three distinct stages.

This event took place in the historic landmark building, 906.World Cultural Center, 906 Broadway, San Francisco.

Here are some photos:


Live painting at the previous San Francisco International Art Salon and Fashion Show in SOMArts earlier this year.

Live Painting
Michael Cerbelli’s: The Hot List
WEC19 Toronto

I created iPad portraits of guests and live painted the stage presentation at the Michael Cerbelli’s “The Hot List™” 2019 in the MPI WEC19 Conference, Toronto, Canada. In this video (above) I share here the replay of Michael’s presentation plus some of the portrait time-lapse replays that show the brush stroke by brush stroke creative process. I used an iPad Pro 12.9 (3rd Generation), Apple Pencil 2 and Procreate app. Each portrait subject received the special and unique take-away of digital files of their portrait and the replay video immediately on completion, which they could then share on their social media.

Jeremy Sutton Live Event Painting, as featured in:

Here is a set of links to all of Michael Cerbelli’s “The Hot List™” 2019 presentations where I have performed live:

January 2019, The Special Event (TSE) show, San Diego, CA

February 2019, New York City, NY

March 2019, International Live Events Association (ILEA), Greater Philadelphia Chapter, PA

June 2019, Meeting Professionals International (MPI)’s World Education Congress (WEC 19), Toronto, Canada

Painting the Scene
Dinner at the Vineyard

At a corporate event in a Napa Valley vineyard I painted an artistic interpretation of the scene over the course of a three hour reception and dinner. The tools I used were the iPad Pro 12.9 (3rd Gen.), Apple Pencil 2 and Procreate app. Guests were entertained and intrigued to watch on the large LED screen how the painting evolved from scratch to completion. I showed the time-lapse replay from time to time during the evening. At the end of the event I shared the digital files with the client which they could show later and share with their guests as a unique memory of the evening.

Virgin Atlantic
San Francisco Inaugural
1994

Portrait of Sir Richard Branson, created from life on board the Virgin Atlantic San Francisco Inaugural flight.

25 years ago, on May 17th, 1994, I was part of the Virgin Atlantic San Francisco Inaugural VIP group, invited to paint a live digital portrait of Richard Branson on board the flight. We were flown over from San Francisco (via LAX) to the UK, where we spent the weekend with Richard Branson, Virgin Group Chairman and Founder, and his family, colleagues and friends, in London and at his Oxfordshire estate (for tea and cricket), and then flew back on the very lively inaugural flight of Virgin Atlantic into San Francisco (which included a boxer short fashion show!) I drew live digital portraits of Richard and his family and guests during the weekend on the inaugural flight itself. This assignment launched my career as a full-time artist after 12 years as a physicist selling superconducting magnets! I used state-of-the-art equipment (for the time) including a prototype yet-to-be-released Macintosh Powerbook (kindly loaned to me by Apple) with a Wacom tablet and Fractal Design Painter X2 software.

Please visit the Virgin Atlantic blog post “Digital memories of our first flight to San Francisco” by Dave Gunner commemorating this anniversary.

Here are some more of the portraits and a few photos from the experience.

With Holly and Richard and one of Holly’s friends in Richard’s Oxfordshire garden watching a replay of my portrait of Holly.

Portrait of Richard’s daughter, Holly.

Portrait of Richard’s mother, Eve.

Portrait of Richard’s father, Ted.

At Richard’s Oxfordshire home with lovely Marian and Vivian Brown, San Francisco’s famous twins, who always had such wonderful smiles. We would bump into each other around town for many years after this event and all have a good laugh at how much fun it was!

Clarence Clemons playing on board the Virgin Atlantic San Francisco Inaugural flight.

Portrait of Liz Brewer.

Portrait of Richard Mineards.

Portrait of Marci MacDonald.

Portrait of Everett Potter.

Portrait of Tony Hawks.

Portrait of Ruth Blakemore.

Portrait of Roy Gardner.

Portrait of Jan Jaques.

Richard drops by while I painted live portraits at the Virgin Atlantic Tenth Anniversary Party in London, UK, a few months after the San Francisco Inaugural.

Quick sketch of Richard.