Hagia Sofia Acrylic 48 by 36

Turkey was a fabulous country with inspiring architecture, and no buildings were more awesome than this one, built at the height of Byzantine power. I don't usually do paintings with such involved architectural drawings, but based on this one, I think I'll do more.

Comments

D Phoenix said…

This is lovely. I was just looking at a friend's photos of the Hagia Sofia (from the outside) and then came to your page to find this! I think you captured the light really well. I like the sense of distortion in the perspective as it adds to the sense of overwhelming grandeur.

I'm glad you told me about your blog. Excellent work here. I'm very fond of your strong colours and the solid brushwork.I look forward to seeing some canvases in person.

June 25, 2009 at 3:02 PM

My Challege to Myself

Because I am a bit of a masochist I have set a challenge for myself.. To paint two small (6 by 9 inch) watercolors per day in addition to anything else I will create. I want to continue this for at least a month. The goal of this experiment is to force me to treat my traditional subjects with new eyes and to push me to explore other ideas and subjects. Here are two of my first attempts. The idea of one summer and one fall painting came from Jack.

The Blog rises again

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Poppies Three Ways

There are many ways to approach a painting. Using a poppy as subject I explored three of them. These are all quick sketches, 9 by 12 inches. The first watercolor is done alla prima, directly painting the subjects as positive shapes. This yields a strong and vivid image that grabs your attention. It doesn't have much of the transparency of traditional watercolors though. The second painting was done by painting the space around the poppy, using the background to "draw" the flower. This gives a more ethereal and transparent look. The third painting is a hybrid of the two approaches with the use of underpainting. painted a warm area where the flower would be and used cool colors for the rest of the background. The flower was then defined using negative space and then painted with stronger colors.

Quattrocchi Art

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