Virtual Paintout 6: Vevie Goes to Italy!

For the month of May Vevie and the Virtual Paintout  gang went to Italy! 

Specifically Lido di Jesolo, a province of Venice. Yes, the place famous for all the canals and romantic gondolas.

(click on any pics to enlarge; I kept them small here so the page will load faster for you)

I must have been in a romantic mood for this one, and chose my title from an old Celtic hymn "The Water is Wide". The CD I have is by David Arkenstone called Celtic Hymns, and I like this version of the lyrics:

The water is wide, I can't cross o'er

And neither have I wings to fly

Give me a boat that can carry two

And we shall sail, my love and I

"And We Shall Sail, My Love and I"

From Google Street View in 

Lido di Jesolo, Italy

9 x 12 acrylic on canvas

Here is the original Google Street View scene I chose to use:

As usual, I dinked around in Photoshop, trying out color schemes, etc. Settled on the one below for my mock-up. You'll see in the finished painting I made a change by leaving out the street lamps. They just made for too much clutter right in front of all that ships rigging. I like it better without them, but retained a bit of warm glow by keeping the last remnants of a sunset in the lower sky behind the ships. 

For a value check and to help me see the ships rigging better, I also made a black and white version:

I settled on a limited palette. I set the tubes out, then put the rest away. This time it consisted of:

Pthalo Turquoise (and a little Ultramarine Blue)

Cad Red Medium (and a little Permanent Alizarine)

Indian Yellow (currently my favorite yellow; so warm and glowing)

Dioxazine Purple

Titanium White

                                               

For my black, I mixed together: Thalo Green + Napthol Red Lt; 

and a little Payne's Grey mainly on the ships and Vevie.

(Don't remember if I mentioned this, but I've been using Chroma Interactive acrylics for this series; will talk more about them next time; I'm really enjoying them).

So here we go, the "making of" photos:

I enjoy texture, so started by putting a layer of gesso on my canvas with a palette knife. When dry, sealed it with matte medium; that made it easier to draw the image and adjust the lines as needed, with vine charcoal. I tried the vine charcoal once before, and hated the smudgey mess! But discovered that sealing the dried gesso first with the matte medium made a huge difference in the mess factor.  :-)

Underpainting colors; decided to add the Permanent Alizarine along with the Indian yellow and Dioxazine Purple:

Started the block of of basic colors and shapes:

 Background done:

Alas and alack, I forgot to take more photos... so here we are, finished!

You can peek at the image wrapping around the canvas here:

Still wet on the easel, before a thinned coat of gloss medium, with the ref pic next to it:

A close up of the ships:

And can't forget Vevie or I'd never hear the end of it!

And the finished gloss coated large version of 

"And We Shall Sail, My Love and I":

Hope you enjoyed visiting Italy with Vevie and me. Happy painting!

Retta

PS: Anyone interested in joining the Virtual Paintout excursions is welcome. Almost all mediums are acceptable; check HERE for all the info. It's fun!