Ham Art Group Exhibition

Gathering my paintings for the Ham Group Exhibition, it always surprises me the amount of time all the preparation takes. Wish me luck!

Tweaked and finished for now

I ended up rethinking the perspective on the left of these buildings, and getting some order to them. The other changes I made were to the windows just trying to get a better balance. 

Next I felt I needed to lift the section of the picture that's under the bridge, so used some cadmium yellow and orange in the near foreground, then took it back to mould the form of the boat, and then also to depict the lit water reflected on the bridge's arch.
The other change was to soften the shadows, to show the true colours of the walls within the shadows.

Now I need a title, so far only thought of 'Boat under a Bridge', which is descriptive but not very imaginative. I don't need to decide for a few weeks, when it will make it's first appearence in public at a Spring Exhibition, along with two other gouache studies of the same bridge(these also need titles!).

Ponte Vecchio is nearing the finish......

Had a longer session on this today. Still lots of tweaking and finishing off but feeling like its now looking nearer completion.

A few more windows later....

Only a few more to go! Then its the bridge, boat and water.....

A few windows and tiles later.....

As the title suggests, alot of pondering of terracotta tiles, and windows, can't believe I'm barely halfway down the canvas! The warm weather has been very welcome, definitely can notice the oils drying faster.

Now for some details

Started to think about the details today, not sure how much I need. I want to represent the tiles on the terracotta roofs but I don"t want them over laboured. I can see a wonky vertical top left, so will deal with that!

Got the first layer on

Got the first basic layer on, so I can now get a feel for the balance of the painting. Generally happy with the overall feel of this, now I need to start working in the details, starting at the top where the paint has begun to dry.