Wallace Collection: Sketching Venice by Canaletto

After limbering up with Mr Bonington (see Wallace Collection: Sketching Venice by Bonington), I moved to the next gallery at the Wallace Collection and got to grips with a big painting of Venice by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, (1697 - 1768).

I had a lot to choose from!

Sketch of Venice: the Bacino di San Marco from San Giorgio Maggiore by Canaletto
11" x 16", pen and ink and coloured pencils in Moleskine Sketchbook

Canaletto is one of those painters who I find is liable to induce blind panic due to the sheer size of some of his paintings and the amount of perspective involved.  I picked one of the less complicated ones!  The sketch is of Canaletto's painting Venice: the Bacino di San Marco from San Giorgio Maggiore and it can be found in the West Gallery on the first floor.

These are some of the other paintings in the West Gallery.  Besides works by Canaletto, it also includes a few paintings by Francesco Guardi (1712 - 1793) and some imitators of Canaletto.

Why sketch paintings in art galleries

One of the reasons I like sketching paintings in art museums and galleries is that it's one of the best ways I know of learning how a composition works, the real colours involved in the palette and the real tonal values of seemingly light or dark parts of a painting.

So with this one:

• the horizon includes all the iconic buildings on that side of the basin and is below the centre line - although interestingly NOT on a third
• the apex of the triangular quayside in the foreground is however on "a third"
• the masts on the vessel in the centre of painting (and those of other ships) echo the strong vertical of the campanile on the right and are also echoed by the even taller mast on the left side (not included in my sketch - I ran out of time) which acts as a block and stops the eye straying out of the picture
• the water and sky are both a lot darker than first appears.  The darker tonal values sit either side of sunlit buildings on the horizon
• the boat coming in from the right persuades my eye to return to the centre of the painting
• there's a few little touches of red around the painting which enliven and energise the green/blue of the water and the ochre/sienna of the ground
• there's a lot more cream in the sky than I first realised - which warms the painting up.
• the figures in the foreground represent different aspects of Venetian life

This is what the Wallace Collection website has to say about this painting.

One of a pair of unusually large views, depicting the Bacino di San Marco from opposing vantage points. Here the viewer is placed on the steps of the church of San Giorgio Maggiore looking across the Bacino di San Marco towards the Canale della Giudecca on the left, with the opening of the Grand Canal in the centre of the canvas, and the Campanile (bell-tower), the Piazzetta and the Doge’s palace on the right. It is an attractive, clearly identifiable view of a type calculated to appeal to the Grand Tourist, with picturesque elements of local colour reinforcing the idea of Venice as an exciting cosmopolitan centre.

Paintings from the past are also a jolly good way of finding "views" of a place or what I call places to paint in The Art of the Landscape.  This particular one is a classic and quite possibly overdone view of Venice - but it's certainly one which presents a challenge.

This is the location of the view in Venice.  The painting is of the view from the island of San Giorgio Maggiore - looking northwest to the buildings either side of the Grand Canal - from Santa Maria della Salute in the west to the waterfront buildings of the SanMarco Sestieri in the middle and the east.


Wallace Collection:

• address - Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN (nearest tube: Bond Street; more info about visiting)
• website - http://www.wallacecollection.org/

Wallace Collection: Sketching Venice by Bonington

This is the first sketch I did before the Cornish Cream Tea. It's a sketch of the painting of Venice: the Piazza San Marco by Richard Parkes Bonington(1802 - 1828) in one of the galleries of the Wallace Collection

Sketch of Venice: the Piazza San Marco (1828)
an oil painting by Richard Parkes Bonington
11" x 8", pen and ink and coloured pencil in Moleskine Sketchbook

I chose it because I turned a corner and this painting just grabbed me and insisted I sketch it. I never demur when this happens.

Maybe it was something to do with the fact that it looked unfinished.  Maybe it was the composition.  It's usually about the colour when this happens and I suspect it was in this case. The web version on the Wallace Collection website definitely does not do it justice.

The context of the complementary colours of purple walls against old gold certainly got my retinal receptors zinging.

I learned that the Wallace Collection has one of the best collections of oil paintings and watercolours by Richard Parkes Bonington who died age 26 from consumption.  This painting was started in the year he died.

The Wallace Collection is fortunate to own probably the finest collection in the world of paintings by Richard Parkes Bonington (1802-1828) - ten oils and twenty-five watercolours. They represent most of his major areas of interest, ranging from richly costumed historical scenes to views in France and northern Italy, particularly Venice.

Everything I've ever seen of Bonington's work suggests he's an artist who's worth studying.  Below are some links to biographies of and work by Bonington

Wallace Collection:

• address - Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN (nearest tube: Bond Street; more info about visiting)
• website - http://www.wallacecollection.org/

Links:

• Handprint - Richard Parkes Bonington
• Tate - Richard Parkes Bonington
• biography
• works
• Wikipedia - Richard Parkes Bonington
• Wikimedia - Richard Parkes Bonington

Canaletto & His Rivals at the National Gallery

Venice: Canaletto & his Rivals - National Gallery, London
pen and ink and coloured pencils in moleskine sketchbook, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

These are a couple of sketches from Venice: Canaletto & His Rivals - the recent exhibition at the National Gallery in London

This is now in the process of transferring to the National Gallery of Art in Washington (see Venice: Canaletto & His Rivals February 20–May 30, 2011).  If you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it as an excellent exhibition of its kind.

The exhibition celebrates the rich variety of these Venetian views, known as vedute, through some 20 masterworks by Canaletto and more than 30 by his rivals, including Michele Marieschi, Francesco Guardi, and Bernardo Bellotto. Responding to an art market fueled largely by the Grand Tour, these gifted painters depicted the famous monuments and vistas of Venice in different moods and seasons.

It has a lot of amazing paintings. What I particularly valued was seeing the same view painted by different artists, some of whom were influenced by the earlier paintings.

One of the interesting aspects about the painting is the difference between

• artists who painted the figures - and Venice was the backdrop
• artists who painted Venice - and the people are part of the scene in the same way as every other part of the scene

Canaletto is one of the latter.

Venice: Canaletto & his Rivals (Room 1) - National Gallery, London
pen and ink and coloured pencils in moleskine sketchbook, 8" x 10"
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I find I sketch the interiors of galleries much more in winter when the scope to sit outside is limited by the wind, rain, cold and snow.  I have my fingers crossed that we're not having any more snow.

These sketches are determined by: where the seats are, locations where I can get a good view of one room looking into another; drawing figures one at a time - as they come and go.  I find it's important to get the height of the first one right and to note the general proportions of people in front and behind are relative to that figure.  Guards are good for this as they tend not to move much for long periods.

While doing the sketch of Room 1 I found out what happens if somebody attempts to take a photo of one of the paintings with a cameraphone.  The gentleman in question was politely but firmly escorted out of the exhibition by one of the guards......and I didn't see him return.

Links:  

• Canaletto - Resources for Art Lovers
• Top 10 Art Galleries and Museums
• The Top Ten Museums in London

Interior landscapes with food - a Sketchbook

Lots of my sketches on my travels end up being done in restaurants, cafes and tea rooms. One day I may do a book.........

In the meantime, this summary post:

• lists all the sketches by title, with their locations. I've organised it geographically in case anybody else fancies having a go at sketching the same view.
• links to the locations in the title of the place

I'm also planning to post more of my sketches in various restaurants and other eateries which have already appeared on my other blog - see 'Making A Mark' - Interiors. While most of the sketches are of interiors (hence the title), a few involve facilities where the eating and drinking frequently takes place on a terrace outside eg Kew Gardens. Some are purely are of my view while I was taking refreshments.

Also ...... a post about my tips for people wanting to sketch in restaurants and other eateries.

10 "Dos and Don'ts" for how to draw people while eating

An Orangery Afternoon Tea
Kew Gardens

London (from west to east)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

• The Royal Botanic Gardens in June
• Taking tea at Kew Gardens
• Sketching the Japanese Landscape at Kew Gardens - and people on the terrace outside the Orangery   
• Tea at The Kew Greenhouse

Chelsea

• Croissant and cupcake at Gail's, Fulham Road Chelsea

Kensington Palace

• Chocolate cake at Kensington Palace Café

Rex Whistler Restaurant 
Tate Britain, London

Tate Britain

• Dining and Sketching at the Tate Britain Restaurant
• Sketching the First Landscape

Piccadilly - Royal Academy of Arts

• Sketching at The RA - The Friends Room #1
• Sketching at The RA - The Friends Room #2
• Sketching at The RA - The Friends Room #3
• Sketching at the RA - The Friends Room #4 and #5 
• Sketching at the RA - Friends Room #6 
• Sketching at the RA - Friends Room #7 
• Lunch at the Academy Restaurant at the RA
• More from the Friends Room at the RA

St James Restaurant
Fortnum & Mason, London

Piccadilly - Fortnum and Masons

• A Day out in Piccadilly
• Lunch at Fortnum and Masons
• Tea at Fortnum and Masons after the Summer Exhibition
• The Parlour Restaurant
• Cheese and biscuits at Fortnum & Mason

Mall Galleries

• RI Exhibition at the Mall Galleries
• The Private View (199th RI Exhibition)

Wallace Collection

• Cornish Cream Tea at the Wallace Restaurant
• Sketching at the Wallace Collection

National Gallery

The National Cafe
National Gallery, London

• Lunch at the National Cafe
• Drawings from the National Gallery
• Lunch at the National Dining Rooms - and sketching in the National Gallery
• Sketching the Olympics in Trafalgar Square - and afternoon tea!
• Lunch in the National Cafe #2
• Another way of drawing people

National Portrait Gallery: Portrait Restaurant and Portrait Cafe

• High spots in Westminster and Trafalgar Square
• Drawing, tea and DVDs at the National Portrait Gallery
• Westminster at night
• Lunch at the Portrait Cafe
• The Portrait Cafe
• The Cosmic Conversation + RA Sketchbook

Tate Modern

• Room with a view
• Sketching with Liz Steel and Borromini

"Fish! Restaurant, Borough Market
Bankside, London

Bankside

• In the Pink - at the Bramah Tea and Coffee Museum
• Fish! Supper in Borough Market

City of London - Smithfield

• Carluccios - 12 West Smithfield 
• The Courtauld, Old Bank of England and West Smithfield

East London

• St John Bread and Wine, Spitalfields

Northern England

• Staffordshire - Biddulph Grange: Drawing people and delaying the cream tea
• Manchester Art Gallery - Gallery Cafe: Eating in the Gallery cafe at Manchester Art Gallery

The Ferry Inn, Cookham
Berkshire, England

Southern England

• Cookham: Cliveden, Cookham and Stanley Spencer
• Moreton-in-the-Marsh: Moreton in Marsh - galleries, cakes and tarts  
• Perry Green: Sketching in a barn at Hoglands
• Clavering: Lunch at The Cricketers, Clavering, Essex

Europe

Menu du Terroir, La Grillade Gourmande, Épernay

Auberge du Terroir
Servon, Normandy

France

• Paris:
• Eating international in Paris
• Petit déjeuner @ Dolce e Amaro
• Dining out in Paris - Montmartre and Saint-Germain-des-Prés
• Servon, Normandy: Auberge du Terroir, Servon
• Château de Boucéel, Normandy: Petit déjeuner at the Château de Boucéel
• Épernay: Épernay and The Grillade Gourmande
• Crillon Le Brave: 
• The view of Mont Ventoux from Crillon Le Brave
• Another sketch of lunch at Crillon Le Brave
• Dinner at Restaurant du Vieux Four, Crillon Le Brave
• St Remy de Provence: Lunch at La Maison Jaune, St Remy de Provence
• Bedoin: Dinner and sunset at Le Mas des Vignes, Bedoin
• Bourg en Bresse, Ain: Les Quatre Saisons in Bourg en Bresse
• Gevrey Chambertin, Burgundy: Lunch Chez Guy in Gevrey-Chambertin
• Boulogne sur Mer: Restaurant Nausicaa, Boulogne sur Mer - my last meal in France

Italy

Trattoria alla Madonna
Venice

Venice:

• Harry's Bar: Venice - Sunday May 8th 2005
• Quadri's, Piazza San Marco: Venice - Wednesday 11th May 2005
• Trattoria alla Madonna: Venice - Friday 13th May 2005 (lunch and afternoon)

USA

USA - California

Tommys
San Clemente, California

• San Clemente: "The big cheese on the pond" - eating and drinking in San Clemente, California
• Pacific Grove: Driving Highway 1 - the Pacific Coast Highway
  
• Carmel-by-the-Sea: Carmel by the Sea and a marine inversion
  
• San Luis Obispo: The best breakfast of the trip - at the Big Sky Cafe!
• Malibu: The end of my drive down Highway 1 and the start of "concrete freewayville"

USA - Arizona

• Yuma: Breakfast in Yuma
• Yuma: 2,000 miles later - Louise drives the desert with style!

Cafe on Route 66
Grants, New Mexico, USA

USA- New Mexico

• Truth or Consequences: Chillis and a big elephant butt
• Santa Fe: Santa Fe and Georgia O'Keeffe
• Grants: Back in time to Route 66...and a bit more

USA Massachusetts

• Cape Cod - Orleans: Cape Cod National Seashore
• Cape Cod - Chatham: More sketching at mealtimes
• Rocky Neck, Gloucester: Rocky Neck and Rockport, Massachusetts
• Boston Airport: to follow

Burdicks, Walpole,
New Hampshire, USA

USA - New Hampshire

• Walpole: Apple orchards, maples and a chocolatier

USA - Vermont

• Bradford - The grass is greener in Vermont

USA - Maine

In Good Company,
Rockland, Maine

• Bath and Rockland : The Farnsworth, the Wyeths and the rain
• West Falmouth: The Interior of the Quaker Tavern B&B

More travel sketches 

You can see more of my travels with a sketchbook on my website or by clicking the links to the summaries of blog posts for different areas in the right hand column. These are the links to my travels with a sketchbook in London; England; Venice and the USA.

This post will be updated as new sketches are added to this blog.

Venice 2005 - Summary

This thread provides links to all the individual posts relating to my trip to Venice in May 2005.
They are all posted sequentially so if you go to the first, you can then read the whole trip by scrolling up the page.

1. Sketching in Venice - May 2005 - introduction
   
2. Venice - Sunday 8th May 2005 - sightseeing, a boat race, Harry's Bar, the Dogana and the Salute
   
3. Venice - Monday 9th May 2005 - what to do when it's wet and windy; the pescheria and Desdemona's house
   
4. Venice - Tuesday 10th May 2005 (morning) - the view from the Arsenal
   
5. Venice - Tuesday 10th May 2005 (afternoon) - a shopping trolley, pigments and wooden pears
6. Venice - Wednesday 11th May 2005 - Piazza San Marco, lunch and sketching at Quadris and the Palazzos Dario and Barbero on the Grand Canal (both associated with Monet painting in Venice)
   
7. Venice - Thursday 12th May 2005 - the Friary Church and the Ca D'Oro
   
8. Venice - Friday 13th May 2005 (morning) - the market, the Rialto Bridge
   
9. Venice - Friday 13th May 2005 (lunch and afternoon) - lunch and sketching waiters, more Rialto and noisy gondoliers, exhibition
   
10. Venice - Conclusions

Technorati tags: art , sketching , Venice

Venice - May 2005 - conclusions

The reason for creating the (original) thread like this is to encourage everybody to have a go at plein air painting - and to visit Venice if they can. It's certainly an ideal place for anybody wanting to paint - you can get to everywhere quite easily through a combination of vaporetto and foot. There are things to sketch and paint everywhere you look, it's a real visual feast - even if it rains!

The painting at the top of the page was one I completed when I got home - it's called "Painting Party at the Pescheria" - based on our trip to the Fish Market on Monday when it rained.

This trip was linked to an advanced course with Paul Riley who is a watercolourist and tutor. You can see details of the regular workshop schedule and painting trips on the website of Coombe Farm Studios.

I've stopped going on painting holidays for the tuition per se and now do pretty much all my work independently rather than with the group - as I did this time. However, I still very much enjoy having people to converse with over breakfast (planning the day) and over the drinks and dinner in the evening (what did we do / would do differently if we did it again ). I'm still not sure about whether or not I've got the nerve to go out to somewhere like Venice and do a whole week on my own - although I've done a few days at a time in different places on a few occasions so far. I've also been known to pick restaurants on my travels for their view as well as their food before now!

What did I learn on this trip? Well how about:

• you can get a big return if you do decent homework / preparation in advance (eg where to go / what to tackle) but aren't limited by what you've found out in advance - there are always going to be surprises
• I can actually get a great deal of work done if I put my mind to it and get up and out early - I probably achieved more on this trip than any other
• there's a lot of places to paint in Venice where you needn't be bothered by crowds - you just need to look
• a good guidebook helps (I used the Dorling Kindersley Venice and the Veneto (Eyewitness Travel Guides S.) - lots of great location maps)
• a guidebook which is annotated (by me following a bit of research) with the location of places where others have painted before me is even more helpful!
  
• even if you set yourself up in the same spot others have painted from, you can always get a new take (ie mine!) on a popular scene or motif
• a tip I once got from Jackie Simmonds proved jolly useful when I employed it on this holiday. She recommends coming up with a title for a picture after choosing a scene and before committing to paper. It helps to get the focus of the picture sorted straight away - and keeps you focused on it all the way through.
• digital cameras can take an awful lot of photos so long as you have a big enough memory card and remember to carry a spare set of charged batteries on you - I forgot to take a spare set the first morning and had to go haring back to the hotel for the spare pack when I forgot to put a freshly charged set in that morning
• shopping trolleys work well for carrying painting materials around - and help you to stand up on vaporettos! However, they're not so wonderful on some of the little bridges. However the wheels survived my specially devised autodestruct test while bouncing up and down steps!
• don't sit on the windy side of the pescheria when it's raining cats and dogs - those red blinds can flap rain all over your painting! But Art Spectrum Colourfix doesn't mind!

I'm reasonably pleased with what I did on site. However, the real test after every trip is converting sketches and photos into fully worked up paintings. What I'm enjoying at the moment is I have the complete image for at least three or four large pieces already fairly well sorted in my head - it's just a question of starting to get them down on paper.

I think I'm going to try and focus on going on painting trips with like-minded friends in future if that's possible and try for the 'modus operandi' in the field of the sort which tends to operate in within groups of people who get to know one another over the internet.

(Note: This commentary on my trip to Venice was written in May 2005. My next trip is to the southwestern USA this month - with friends I've met and got to know over the Internet and who I've not yet met in real life!)


Technorati tags: art , Venice ,

Venice - Friday 13th 2005 (lunch and afternoon)

About 1.30pm I went for lunch at a nearby trattoria which is well thought of - and had the most amazing time - and four courses! So menu first - this time it was fish, fish, fish and sorbet!

• Hors d'Oeuvres Madonna (all the little shell things I'd seen in the fish market),
  
• Spaghetti with squid in black ink,
  
• fillet of St Pierre in bread
  
• and then Lemon sorbet with Proseco. (I'm now on a diet!)
  

And I've got photos of inky squid and St Pierre if anybody wants to see them in their raw state.

But the best bit was the waiters!

There was this very tall and patrician Maitre D (what's the equivalent in Italian?) who obviously ran the place 'just so'. And then sat at the back was a whole table of waiters of various ages. I thought they might be having their lunch but then thought that was odd as it was lunchtime - and waiters normally eat just before or after the time a restaurant is open for lunch.

It turned out that they were all shelling the scampi for that evening. There were ENORMOUS mounds of cooked scampi and scampi shells - each one of them had a little mountain! So I asked if I could take a photo and they said Yes and then I started to sketch in pen and ink. And this is the sketch of "The shelling of the scampi" - which is going to make a marvellous painting as it's all black and white and neutral colours and then these big pinky apricot mounds of scampi and shells.

I probably didn't spend more than 15-20 minutes on the sketch - there are times when attending life drawing tends to pay off - but unfortunately not for the bloke on the left whose head I got wrong! He was absolutely fascinated by what was going on and kept looking round to see what I was doing.

And then.........waiters started coming over to watch me.

And then...........the Maitre D came over and I thought he was going to stop me - but I showed him where I was up to and he nodded and said something in Italian which I didn't understand. I think I was OK because nobody was identifiable - again just suggestions of faces rather than portraits.

And then........because he'd been to look even more of them came over to look! What I hadn't appreciated until I looked around the trattoria a bit more was that they had paintings absolutely everywhere - on every wall three and four high up the walls.

When I finished I gave it to one of the waiters who then took it around the table of waiters - as they were all still shelling! - and everybody had a good look at the picture - and, of course, what they looked like! Lots of nods and smiles and 'Bella' type comments. It always makes it worthwhile when you do a sketch which people know you're doing and they get to see it - and then they don't make faces! Must have been OK then!

Note a bit of lunch escaped and got on the sketch!

The afternoon was a bit less successful. I tried a sketch next to the Rialto but it was just too busy and noisy (gondoliers arguing!). This is what I was trying to do and will probably have another go at - it's photo no. 167 since Monday morning!

So I went back to near the Fish Market and did a very fast sketch as I was due back at the hotel by 5.00pm to fulfil my honorary task of 'End of Course Exhibition Organiser'. I even bring my own blu-tak! Here is the exhibition of the various paintings executed during our week in Venice.

And then we all went out for dinner!

Technorati tags: art , drawing , pen and ink , plein air , sketching , sketchbook , Venice ,

Venice - Friday 13th May 2005 (morning)

Guess who didn't realise it was Friday the 13th?

The rest of the party class went off to paint further up into Cannareggio but since that was where we stayed last time we came to Venice, I decided to stick around the Rialto area which I'd not got around to looking at properly last time.

So I loaded up the trolley and set off in the traghetto at San Sofia for the fish market just the other side of the Grand Canal where we painted on the first day.

Last Friday it was in full swing as a fish market. Now to avoid loading this thread with yet more images I'm going to post a link to images of and explanations about the Fish Market and Fruit and Vegetable Markets which is rather good. This is the day I took well over a 100 photos of fish and fruit and veg and the market. Here's a just a very small selection of the fish I saw in the market.

The fruit and veg market was just as good - and I finally got the hang of that thing with digi cameras where you use the screen thingie to show you what you're doing - and as a result you can take all sorts of photos which you can't do if you've got your eye smack up against it in normal photo taking mode - it was a very educational experience!

Here are a few of the fruit and veg piccies. Notice how the green and white asparagus are decorated with wisteria blooms - colour co-ordinated or what? And have you ever seen dried tomatoes like this before - I certainly haven't?

I finally dragged myself away from the market and set off to find a place to paint.

I'd had a notion of doing the Rialto Bridge but as a background. Here's the drawing I did which when worked up will be called 'The steps near the Rialto Bridge' slight pun fully intended.

This is very much a colour sketch rather than a WIP and probably won't be finished. It's the only piece I did while I was there in which I consciously tried to work people in while I was working - and very difficult it was too as the models kept moving. Fortunately I had a couple - whose photo I won't post - who stayed very still for a long time and were sitting in a wonderful place in compositional terms. All the 'real life' people will lose their identities in the painting so it becomes one of those paintings were people will think "that could have been me".

Lunch comes next!

Technorati tags: art , drawing , coloured pencils , pen and ink , pencil , plein air , sketching , sketchbook , Venice ,

Venice - Thursday 12th May 2005

And the sun shone again! We took the vaporetto down the Grand Canal to St Tomo and went to the square in front of the Friary Church (in the Santa Croce and San Polo district).

I was very sniffy and said it didn't do anything for me and went off on a walk in search of something better but didn't find anything. Came back and walked to a different bit of the square (the quiet bit with the sunshine!) and instantly found a view - such is life! It always pays to walk all the way around the first place you come to before setting off to find something better! Anyway, I set myself up on the doorstep of the Institute of Archivists (I kid you not!) and proceeded to get going on this view - except this is the photo take nearer the end when I'd worked out that I needed some people to give scale to the piece.

In the middle of the square shortly after I started, was a guitar player sitting playing classical guitar - in classical guitarist pose. (This is the way to draw/paint folks - in the sunshine in Venice with somebody playing classical guitar less than a stone's throw away!) so guess what the piece will be called. This one is a dead cert to be done again - but needs lots of thinking around how to populate it with figures without losing the focus on the guitar player who I want to be deliberately understated.

Anyway, here is the colour study sketch - minus all figures except the classical guitar player - in my sketch book - hence slightly funny looking scan. It's across two pages and I had to stitch them together and the software didn't want to do it automatically so I had to it 'manually'. It's the biggest drawing I actually did while I was there approx 17" x 9" in about 2-3 hours. Eyeballing all the way on all that ' challenging' perspective in sepia ink before I started to use the CPs.

Then I had a chinese lunch(!) sitting in the sunshine in the chinese cafe in the square and sketched a window with flowers in pots, again in sepia ink inbetween munching prawn crackers.

After lunch, I walked north from the church, back to the Fish Market and set up to the left of the Fiush Market and opposite the Ca d'Oro to see how much I could get done of that.

I'd already worked out that in the late afternoon that the sun would be on the building and I would get to sit in the shade. (It's always a good idea to work out where the sun will be at different times of day if you're staying in one place and can choose when to do your sketch / drawing / painting).

Here's the photo and then the painting - with a big space to the left as I ran out of puff for painting! The Ca d'Oro has a marble front - hence why it is so very pale. Finally at 6 o'clock, I 'clocked off' and caught the traghetto back over the Canal to get back to my pre-dinner drink at the cafe on the corner.

Technorati tags: art , drawing , coloured pencils , pen and ink , pencil , plein air , sketching , sketchbook , Venice ,

Venice - Wednesday 11th May 2005

This is the day when I skipped the trip to Burano and Torcello and got my head down for some serious painting. So lots of images in this post.

First of all I planned to go to the basin at the back of St Marks Square where they park all the gondolas. I've seen some paintings done by people who have worked there and it looked very promising...........but big disappointment - very busy. Getting there was easy as I had my new shopping trolley with the big wheels. However until I got it, I never really realised quite how many times you walk up and down steps going over little bridges over canals!

As I walked through into St Marks Square it was, as usual, full of people. I then spotted some artists who had tucked themselves away at the far end of the square in a quieter area but with a good view of San Marco - so I went and joined them. One of them was doing a fabulous oil painting of the basilica.

Anyway, being the 'sensible girl' that I am, I get my sketch book out and settle down to a preliminary sketch. Truth be told, I'm not stupid and there was no way I was going to attempt the basilica without trying to work out how it worked first.

I made myself work in pen and ink because I find it makes me look harder as there is no scope for rubbing out mistakes. So first image is a photo of the basilica and the crowds and then my sketch of the basilica in sepia ink.

Then I decided to have a go at doing it in coloured pencil. Interesting decisions to make about where to crop - and whether what I decided actually turned out to be what happened! It's a very difficult building to assess whether or not you're sizing things correctly. Anyway, here is the result - unfinished - CP, A4 size, on a 'neutral' shade of colourfix (not sure what the name is).

Then, after I got very tired going cross-eyed trying to draw, I decided to award myself a very late lunch in the restaurant at Quadris. It's amazing what being uncomfortable for a few hours will do in terms of making you want a comfortable seat to sit on. This restaurant is a very old fixture in the square - silly prices which I don't mind paying once only for the views from the first floor restaurant!

I had the fish, the fish and the fish (getting the food theme yet?) plus a glass of proseco and spent my time while eating next to a window looking out over the square and doing 10 second sketches of people in pen and ink to help populate my painting. And here they are........plus a photo of the interior of Quadris taken on leaving - I got the distinct impression they thought I'd taken root, but you know a comfy seat is a comfy seat!

Then I walked over to the vaporetto stop opposite Palazzo Dario to have a go at painting for real right in front of it rather than than interpreting Monet's versions of it. I had to sit on the corner of the vaporetto stop hoping that the people getting off wouldn't knock me off my chair so my CPs and I ended up in the Grand Canal! So here is the photo of the place - and boy does it lean!

And then my painting - on an A4 size terracotta/rust shade of Colourfix. I might just have exaggerated the lean a bit! This is probably the first one where I felt I was getting back into Monet mode. Quite pleased with this one.

And then it was on to the vaporetto for a No1 ride back up the Grand Canal - with my eyes closing most of the way there.

But not so much that I couldn't take a photo of the Palazzo Barbaro (next to the Accademia Bridge) where Monet (my hero!) stayed in 1908 and painted the Salute - he stood there!!!

Do you think he had problems with the oil paints rolling into the canal?

I've preached to various people on the trip about not setting out to do finished pieces and quoting the statistic about Monet starting 38 pictures of Venice of which 35 were finished at Giverny. Makes me feel better anyway!

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Venice - Tuesday 10th May 2005 (afternoon)

These are photos of different pigments in their natural ground up state. I've never ever seen a display of pigments like this before.

The photos are from the shop where I bought my shopping trolley on the Tuesday afternoon. The photo on the left is the shop window and the one above is of the jars of pigment inside of the shop.

Ella (new painting buddy) then took me to visit one of her very favourite places - the shop of Livio de Marchi. He is an artist who sculpts the most amazing everyday items in wood. You can see a number of examples in this gallery on his website. I bought some wooden pears - quite unlike any I've ever seen before.

This is a photo of him standing at the door to his job. The hat is wooden!

(Note the rather nice and brand new shopping trolley on the left of picture)

Pigment shop: Arcobaleno Pigmenti de Nube Massimo, San Marco - Venezia.

Livio de Marchi Gallery: Salizzada S.Samuele S.Marco n°3157/A 30124 - Venezia (Italia)

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