Try Again

Back to the Bridge

blocking in the sky, Castel, and bridge highlights

quasi-finito

I returned to the Ponte Sant’ Angelo on Sunday afternoon, where Andrea Smith was working again, to take another shot at the bridge and castle. Having learned from my two previous failed attempts what the light would be doing, I arrived around 4pm, and got set up on the downriver side, where the bridge would stay in light until after 7pm, while the Castel Sant’ Angelo would remain more or less consistently lit left and shaded right (silhouetting the bridge). I worked on a large canvas board—35x45cm—that had been wiped down from the previous day, which had given it a mauvish glaze over the burnt siena underpainting. Starting with the sky, I moved to blocking the Castel, then the lights on the bridge,…..

 

The result, after two hours of painting, shown here is not quite finished—the Archangel Michael hadn’t yet arrived, and the fortuitous foreground bush got more leaves. But you get the idea.