Day 19 of the 30/30 Challenge – London

I decided to go to London on Day 19.

For years, I wanted to try my hand at Big Ben, the iconic bell tower that has been painted by many artists from Turner to Monet and beyond. Big Ben is my version of this famous scene, which turned out to be a hybrid cityscape and sunset.

I was in London visiting Laura, who had a research internship at Imperial College during the summer of 2010. Laura and I were coming back from the The Eye in North End, crossing the bridge over the River Thames in the direction of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. It was a gorgeous evening and the sun was just beginning to set. I whipped out my camera and snapped a photo, as did hundreds of other people on that bridge, which inspired this painting.

Today I spent less time planning and more time just reveling in the paint. I wanted to make sure my buildings were straight and actually pulled out a ruler when I did the sketch. Then I picked up my brush and went for the sky. After working for a while, I laid in the foreground to get a sense of how the final composition would look.

When Bonnie came home, I was struggling a bit. She gave me some excellent feedback, reminding me that sometimes you need to make the whites darker before you can get that feeling of light. Painting whites are always challenging because they are so subtle.

I’ll have to revisit the work of John Singer Sargent, a 19th century American artist, who was a master at painting white. Sargent’s whites are actually composed of a bunch of different colors (as are Wayne Thiebaud’s), which is something I would like to master someday. In Big Ben, I stuck with the limited palette of white, black, and blue that was in the photo – which turned out fine.

I went back to compare Big Ben with my Paris Sunset from Day 13, which was a completely different painting experience. Paris Sunset was easier in some ways since it was dominated by the orange glow of the sun setting (aka little white).

Tomorrow I may try another sunset. Stay tuned.