Masters Series: Bert Monroy

Tutorials Masters Bert Monroy

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Photo-realism as an art-form began in the late 1960s. Artists such as Richard Estes, Robert Cottingham, Ralph Goings and Don Eddy created super-sized oil paintings that had a "photographic" quality. The charm of these seemingly sterile and "duplicative" works was to be found in their maddening attention to the smallest detail. The aim of the Photo-realist was not to "interpret" what the camera saw, but to replicate it down to the most minute visible speck. Artists like Estes did not think of themselves as mere copiers of photographs, however, but rather as "realist" painters.

Following in the tradition of Richard Estes' panoramic city views, Bert Monroy has created the digital equivalent of Estes' dramatic cityscapes. Unveiled at the Photoshop World expo in Miami, Bert's painting of the Damen train stop may well be one of the largest digital paintings ever created. As with most of Estes' work, there is a conspicuous lack of people to distract from the main focus of the painting, which is the panoramic view of city streets, walkways, buildings, and skyline.

The following is a quote from the article by Jeff Schewe posted on Adobe PhotoshopNews.com; "Bert was inspired to do this panoramic image - his first (hopefully not his last) - after taking the train in from Rosemont where he was speaking on his Creativity Tour to have lunch with me. He even asked me to go back to the Damen train stop to grab a few extra digital shots with my Canon 1Ds because his original digital shots were lo-rez point-and-shoot captures."

Although Adobe Illustrator was used to create some of the basic building shapes, the bulk of Bert's illustration was done in Adobe Photoshop. Here are some of the impressive image stats:

• Image Size: 40" x 120"
• Illustration Time: Approx. 2,000 hours
• Flattened File Size: 1.7 Gigabytes
• Photoshop Layers: Approx. 50
• Alpha Channels: Over 500
• Paths Count: Over 250,000

Bert's realism style is not limited to "wide field" panoramas such as "Damen." These samples of Bert's Photoshop work illustrate closely cropped images of super-realistic building details.

Bert Monroy's website address is: BertMonroy.com

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