I want to discuss the specific experience of painting crowds and group scenes, because the techniques for suggesting many people without exhausting detail are different from single-figure painting.

The mass principle: a crowd is a mass with individual elements becoming distinguishable at the edges and in the foreground. The mass has a value and color logic of its own. Individual figures are distinguishable in the closest ten percent and the focal area.

Suggestion techniques: in the middle-distance areas I paint the silhouette shape of crowd density with barely differentiated head and shoulder forms. Close examination reveals it as approximate suggestion. At reading distance it reads as convincing crowd.

The focal individual: in a crowd scene there's usually one or a few characters the viewer needs to track. These characters receive full detail. The contrast between their resolution and the crowd's suggestion level makes them stand out without requiring visual tricks.