Watercolor Coming Up...

On a trip to Italy three years ago, I took this photo in Florence:

 I had climbed to the top of the Cathedral and took this shot looking up at the gorgeous carved architecture.  I've been wanting to do a watercolor painting of it ever since!  

I made a quick sketch in my sketchbook on top of some random orange scribbles from some other project or other (and I think it actually adds to the sketch, I like it!) 

 Anyway, that's nothing special but this photo has been on my mind for a while and I finally took the time to start it.  I did a sketch on large (well, large for me, 14"x20") hot pressed (smooth) watercolor paper. 

 

I know it's hard to see, but it's a very light pencil sketch and as I'm using watercolors, I don't want the pencil to show through or get smeared and dirty the color.

I did make a small print of the drawing and played around with some of my Winsor & Newton colored drawing inks I've had forever and never used. (Another problem of mine, hoarding art supplies and not using them. That's going to be a new project, start using all the supplies!)

 

This one is small, a little larger than 8"x10" and my aim here was to loosely apply some color and see what happened.  It was also a small break in the middle of my dresses and I wanted to not worry about being precise and accurate, but throw down some color and get this image off my chest a little bit. 

When I start this painting, I'll post as I go along. Until next time!