Putting the Custom Back in Customer - Part 4 of 6

Next up in the commissioned series:  a lovely landscape, somewhere in Italy, to be rendered in full color watercolor.

As I have previously, I laid a one-inch square grid over the image in photoshop.

And then also kept a version hand with exaggerated "levels" to see where the shadows were deepest:

Then took pen to paper……..

and gradually layered washes of watercolor. I took a few more photos of this process than I did with some of the other paintings:

And done!

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Putting the Custom back in Customer - Part 3 of 6

Next up in the commission series - this daunting landscape of a small city in Italy. Anyone recognize it? It reminds me of Florence but I don't see that iconic dome or any sign of the Arno River. 

My client decided that this photo would be another of the 3 to be recreated in black and white, no watercolor. First, I de-saturated the image so I wouldn't be distracted by the color and applied a grid to the picture. As before, this helps me digest the scene in smaller bites and keep the proportions in order.

I used photoshop to tweak the levels of dark to light, this helped me see more detail by exaggerating the lights and darks.

I again applied a light pencil grid to my paper and dove right in. 

Here's a close-up:

Last step, applying layers of ink, thinned with water, to create volume. Here's the final image, cropped to 9"x12." There wasn't a singular focal point in the original photo, it was rather flat, so it was a challenge. Still, I think the end result is lively and interesting. What do you think?

Next up, the Italian country side in living color……..

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