“September at Ponte Vecchio” Oil Painting
"September at Ponte Vecchio" - 11x14, Oil on Canvas
Well so much for progress shots. I totally got into this one on Sunday. I started painting about 2pm and finished at about 10pm Sunday night. I made a few obligatory adjustments before I went to work this morning and this is the result. I must say that starting off with the tight sketch with accurate perspective seemed to help me a lot. I first began blocking in the buildings on the right – being very careful to preserve my sketched perspective lines. I then blocked in the stone structure of the bridge, paying close attention to the value relationships from front to back. Once I was confident that I was on the right track, I went back into those areas to break up the masses a bit and loosen up the brushwork. That seemed to set the tone for the rest of the painting, which I am happy with because I feel that I made some progress. Architectural pieces have been particularly tough for me with all the detail. On this one, I tried to keep things reasonably simple and lay the colors in with some confidence. It’s a relief to have a some semblance of process that I feel I can leverage for future pieces.
Category: Fine Art and Painting
About the Author (Author Profile)
I am an painter/photographer living in Monument, Colorado and the founder of A Day Not Wasted. As the primary contributor to A Day Not Wasted, I love being surrounded by creative and talented people! Thanks for visiting and comments are always appreciated!Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
I travel the world in search of beauty and bring home what I see through my lens.
By sharing what I learn along the way, I hope to inspire others to pursue their passions daily.
You are so fast, Lee. This is a wonderful piece with great light on the buildings. You did a great job with the drawing and giving a sense of depth with the color on the stone…bravo!
It’s wonderful, Lee! I can feel the sunshine and the cool shade under the bridge. I find architectural paintings difficult because of the detail, too — you did a terrific job with this one. Enough detail to set the mood and not so much it overwhelms and looks overworked. The values look spot-on.
What *are* those buildings on the bridge? They look like they’re glued on and held up by toothpicks, lol. I’m not sure I’d trust them!
Thanks Dana! I think I like the stone best on this one and feel like I can use the experience in future paintings. By the way, I’ve been enjoying your posts lately and admire how busy you are at painting!
Thank you Nicole! I appreciate your comments and share your view of the difficulty of architectural paintings. I see this one as progress with more practice needed! The buildings are mostly gold and silver shops, and yes, they are supported by toothpicks!
Great job. The light is nice in this one. I’m always drawn to architecture. Sounds like you really got into this one. I love the cool shadow colors on the pinkish room.
Thanks Randy. Good to hear from you. I am still questioning a few of the color choices but time to move on to the next one!
Love this scene in Florence, can’t wait to see your various steps. I totally agree with your theory of a good drawing making a better painting…otherwise I try to hurry the painting along and end up with “mud”! Have really enjoyed your vacation pics.