Monuments

It has been almost three months since I started this picture, with the full intention of making the largest and best picture I've done so far. This one will go on to hang in the hallway of my parents' home, to be seen by every single person who ever visits them. For the sake of my parents and my ego, I thought it ought to be the finest I can make it.

In the end, things turned out rather differently than I'd thought. Don't get me wrong, I like it, otherwise I wouldn't declare it finished. But instead of carefully planning and executing, I did a lot of things at the spur of the moment. Instead of following my original composition
http://www.sheezyart.com/view/1132253/
I made up a new one in under 20 minutes:
http://www.sheezyart.com/view/1185797/
After working step by step for at least 20 hours, today I threw away virtually my entire background by covering it up with shadows and highlights. I suppose I just do better spontaneously. As one of my neighbors stated, it has a slightly expressionist touch now. Little coincidence, as expressionism is far and away my favorite epoch of painting.

I also colored the building today - until now, they were all monochrome. I used a highly-diluted wash to color on top of it. Unfortunately, I found out that what works very well on paper - establishing value in monochrome, then coloring - doesn't work so well on canvas. The structure of the canvas greatly affects the flow of the wash, and is not actually very absorbent. I managed somehow, but didn't get the colors I wanted. Still, the result works. Finished by adding a few white highlights to the river and a flare to the sun.

The End.