Well we're taping down the painting here, a piece of paper. Working on a 12 by 16 sheet, rough surface, arches. It's interesting to see the photographs and revisit this scene again.
It was probably almost four years ago that I was there. Spent about a week in Prague and a week in Vienna, and I hope to do a painting of Vienna as well. A couple works I have in mind for Prague.
One, of course, is this panoramic view. Then we'll go down to the streets and paint one of the carriages that they have. The horse-drawn carriages are really special in Prague. Alright, so we have this tape down and I can begin to put layout to my scene and there's not much I'm going to change about this. I'm keeping the horizon very high, thinking about this lead in to my main building here.
Some of the rooftops that come down. This is the river's edge, distant river. Vltava River.
Moving my center of interest just a little more in to this side. These first lines of the bridges back here. Let's make an adjustment here.
Oh. Thank you. Okay, so this is the main compound, all seemingly attached.
A little barge going up there. Lots of ornamental. Stuff. Okay, I think this is enough.
So my plan is to hit the high notes first of these pinkish bluish colors that come through the sky and become some pink rooftops through here. Again more lavender blue through the water and becoming a warmer gray through the rooftops. Some spots of that cobalt turquoise and then we let it dry and come back to the to the darks.
All right so I'm going to start with this bigger mop brush working on a 12 by 16 sheet and I'm going to start with this yellow ochre a warmth and followed by a little bit of cool color My spray bottle handy. I'm sure you're gonna need it. And we'll start with a nice warm hue through everything just to get us started. Right? Big brush.
It's a little strong. Let's dilute it quickly with a lot of water. I do want some pinkish tone through here. And a little more of that reddish hue as we come down through here.
More of that over here as well. Keep it wet and I'm going to start to add a little bit of blue to this. This is lavender and a little bit of ultramarine. Then as we come down a little more of that pure blue.
A little more of that. It's marine. Okay, now we're going to carry the same cool gray to our rooftops here.
And I'll leave this one sort of white, well not sort of white, very white for the moment. Later we'll follow that with more green. Take care of that and I'm going to add some of that cobalt turquoise.
Right, there's a little lavender to that as well. Some of that same color back here in places. Definitely. Some over here as well. Okay, I think that'll do for a beginning.
Like I said I was trying to get some Coolness in the water, a little bit of warmth in the sky, some definite warms in the distance over here. Can we do a corrective? Let's try.
Let's carry more of that sienna over here. We'll follow that with a little bit of a cool wash in the sky, then get some of our mid-tones going through the background, through the lower sections, bridges, trees, etc. All right, we return for the second battle. And we're going with just water, no hesitation. So with a little smaller brush back here.
I kind of lost my lines here. I have to improvise. If we can we'd like to create a nice misty quality to all this. I like to get that bounding bridge while the paper is very dry.
Just start to bring in some of that warmer color. Here we try to get some of those rooftop patterns. Okay, a little darker, a little more of this gray back here. All right, stop fiddling.
Stop your fiddling. Now we're kind of in detail mode, so we might as well do this bridge as well. Restate that later.
More rooftops. Now, let's leave it. Now, come on, man. It's got to be a little stronger.
At least get the value right. Symmetry, probably not, but the value should be right. Put a dry brush stroke under here. Hmm, a little too much water.
Oh well. We continue. I think I have to get a little darker.
I want kind of a silvery gray. Something about like this Start to define that center of interest. Need to see... Thinking calligraphy. All right, connecting up these stronger darks, connecting them to the center of interest, I should say.
Okay, now then this one, you start to feel those trees come up. I'm going to save that for just a second and go to this fella here. And start to create this.
We have a turning edge here. I'm just going to start that off with a little bit of water since it's a turning edge. Then I'll pick up some of this cooler gray but darker.
Create that shadowed side. Hmm being a little too cautious. Well, maybe because I'm painting it sort of newly. And we'll start off with a little darker stuff up here.
That right guy. Like that. Then I'm moving back to this big brush. More of this yellowish rich color and we'll start to paint the foliage. Foliage I can use a little more yellow.
While it's wet I'm adding some of my neutral tint along with ultramarine blue, leaving some of these yellows to come through. But largely I want a sort of flat entrance, especially in this corner. Let's return to our center of interest while this is drying through here. We're going to create that rounded dome. We need some more of this nice green, a little bit of the ultramarine blue.
but quite thick much like we did over here started off with a little bit of water and Let's do the spire. It's just gorgeous. quite dark especially on this forward edge Maybe a little dark but we can regain it with some lights towards the end. A little heavy, a little blocky, it's okay.
Let's try this nice and dark, looks like a little portal or window here and on the side here. And this is having a real strong dark up above. Hm.
I see what I'm missing. I forgot this part. A little water here, then a little more of that greenish blue gray. Make it feel round.
It's a little better. Okay, let's move on. We'll start to create a bit of shading to these rooftops. And there's a slight touch like that.
That was a nice stroke. And a nice touch. Okay, let's adjust this white so we can see the painting a little better and we'll use that warm gray kind of start towards now it's got to have a little more blue to it. Very pale and we kind of... Push it into the painting a little bit.
Okay. So far so good. Well, we have to, well we don't have to do anything really, but we want to. Maybe a few...
Little stuff and we do need some trees on this shore here don't we? Yes we do. Trees with a little bit of yellow.
Let's remember our... now the trees really obscure the bridge in the photograph. I don't want that.
Something like that. We'll go out a little darker. Now it's starting to look a little more natural.
Okay, we're back here doing our final touch-up work. We're going to add some chimneys, we're going to add a few highlights, and some smaller pieces. The image is basically finished, but I want to do a little work on the side and so on, especially the side of this roof here.
So you see I'm taking just a little water right here to lift out an area. water followed by paper towel and I can lift a little square out of there the square will later be given a highlight and I'm going to do the same on this side just a little square we could have painted around it sometimes it's we have a little more control doing it this way in any case this is what we're left with right now Anywhere else I want to do this, I'm going to take off a chimney here. So just cut into that part a little bit. Lift that out. And lift out the second one over here.
Maybe one more here. This one is not as important. We can do a couple over here as well, smaller ones, just to break up that hard edge a little bit. While that's drying up we'll take a More of this cool gray. And we'll create a dormer, dormer right here, and as well as its shadow.
and while it's wet we're going to add some thicker paint. Still have a cool, well we'll put a little red in there. Just along the top here. Little detail in a little window. Working dry into wet.
We do have an interesting little fence right here with another nice little piece of ornamentation. Continues over here as well. Starting to be blocked by trees.
And we have a nice division in the rooftop. A little hint of a window down below. Another dormer, smaller, shadow over the side, reinforce that idea of the slope. See what the shadows look like over here. Okay, here we have another interesting chimney.
Again with a little cast shadow. This one is coming right against the roof of our dormer. We'll put a little highlight on it a little later.
Same with those guys. We'll put a highlight just a little later. And where did we create some right here too.
I'm actually keener on those shadows. Well we don't need them all, just a few to give us an interesting rooftop there. The little lines that traverse the roof are interesting as well.
They help to give us that feeling of the slope. Perhaps another back here. Okay, let's try one dark also on my trees back here. Just a dark to come against this rooftop and give us a feeling like the light is overhead on those trees. a detail which I might add over here as well shape that passage a little better suggestion of windows nothing more hmm okay let's put some highlights on the chimney I like the idea of a boat going up the Vltav.
Pull them out from those darks a little bit. Even our little boat has a white canopy. Typical of the tourist boats to go up and down.
A little of the same stuff. The top of our governmental building. A few little adornments. Look at that green, little flashy color. Flashy, huh?
So we leave it like that and put it in the frame and it's good to go. La Taba. This is the Black Bridge back here, really striking bridge with the big towers on either side. The tram crosses the bridge and over on the left side is Old Town. This is Parliament, governmental buildings.
Behind me, which you can't see, is a beautiful beer garden which is sounding pretty inviting. Right before we put away our things, let's take off the tape, have one last look. See, we forget how white the paper is working with all these grays and so on. We will be in Prague again next week painting the city square of Old Town. Not the main plaza but a small one that runs that the trolley runs through.
Anyway, I hope this is helpful to think about how we create the patterns back here on the far bank of the city, the patterns through here. Even the bridge has a repeated pattern.