Venice – Campo San Barnaba (A4, Arches Cold Pressed)
I used a reference photo for this one and just focused on sketching in all the buildings loosely and trying to reduce them all down into a main background shape. The sky was painted with a bit of cerulean blue with cobalt blue dropped in at the top. I mixed a pale wash of some Cerulean + Naples Yellow for the water, and dropped in some thin strokes of cobalt blue to get some soft ripples and boat reflections. Shadows on the buildings are important for this one to help the light pop out more.
The main process I follow when painting any landscape is to paint all the lighter tones first and at the same time, paint areas requiring some soft wet-in-wet effects like clouds, water. Then once dried, add in all the mid/full tones (darker areas and shadows).
