Wednesday 29 June 2011

Bohemian Anniversary

It's still not that BIG painting I promised you all, but nethertheless it is just a little bit more adventurous for me, even if that is only due to the significant increase in the amount of paint that I used! This is based on a photograph I took of the wonderfully gothic Charles Bridge in Prague whilst on a scenic river cruise with my wife during a wonderful anniversary trip to the Czech Republic in 2009.

The bridge is quite a complex shape  so this time I decided to do an initial drawing of it, and with helpful suggestions from my wife I managed to get the gate tower in proportion with the rest of the structure. I applied paint initially with hog bristle brushes and then used mixed sable/synthetic brushes to blend and establish detail. I added a little oil painting medium to my mixtures for detail work or when the paint started to feel a bit too viscous. I'm still using short-handled brushes (a couple of which have been sawn to fit better in my pochade box) but I guess that will allow me to get used to working with them before I venture out for some much desired plein aire work - which should be very soon I hope! I will probably let this dry a little now and twiddle with some of the values and details a little later - but I'm happy enough to post it as it is now :)

Charles Bridge, Prague, oil on paper, 9" x 12"

12 comments:

  1. What a lovely painting. It must have been a wonderful place to visit.
    If I were to change anything, I might add some lights in the trees. Not fairy lights, mind! ;)

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  2. Thank you Pat - the trees were somewhere near the top of my tweaking list too :)

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  3. Beautiful painting! I love the reflections in the water, they are great! I'm interested to see what tweaking you'll do, I hope you'll show us.

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  4. Dank je Judy. All the wet in wet bit is done but it got more difficult to add highlights and lowlights as they were starting to get lost in the wet paint. It may be a while but I'll certainly post the tweaked version :)

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  5. You seem to be completely natural with oils Michael. And there is nothing 'stiff' about your work but instead it has movement and life. Brilliant! :0)

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  6. Oooh, thank you Sandra. Considering its origin, that's some comment :) I'll be putting a link up later so everyone can check out my slightly used watercolour sets on eBay, LOL !

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  7. Beautiful painting Michael. Love the reflections in the water. Great job on the structure of the bridge as well. Hope you do get out and do some plein air painting soon, it's great fun as you well know. I also like the idea about shortening the brush handles to fit in the pochade box. Thank you for sharing.

    All the best to you,
    Joan

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  8. Thank you for your kind comments Joan. If it's a simple landscape then all I need is a few lines to establish the composition but this was lots of arcs and lines and shadows so the drawing took almost as long as the painting! I hope to get out very soon to do some plein aire oils :)

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  9. Very very nice Michael. I'm particularly struck by the fact that you've painted the shaded side of the bridge. It makes for a more interesting composition. Love the reflections and water.

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  10. Thank you for your kind comment, John. We walked over this bridge at least four times a day for several days but this was the first time we'd seen it properly from both sides !

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  11. Beautiful painting, Michael. The bridge is familiar to me because I was also in Prague and in other parts of Czech Republic in 2009. It's a beautiful country. I also hope to paint something from that land in the future.

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  12. Thank you so much for your kind comments Cora. It must have been wonderful to stay in the Czech Republic for a while. We only saw Prague but I know the whole country is quite special. I look forward to seeing your paintings of it :)

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No silly verification words here - all comments are appreciated! Thank you :)