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Saturday 19 February 2011

The Virtual Paintout - February Challenge

I haven't been able to spend much time in front of the easel these past few weeks which is irritating when all I want to do is paint. However, I decided to skip any other chores this weekend and give this month's Virtual Paintout a try and take a trip along the roads around Romania to see if anything caught my eye. I found some great scenes in the mountainous regions of North East Romania, and this one especially appealed to me. It's a scene from a crossing, along a main road that runs right through the town of Piatra-Neam. What really caught my eye was the enormous puddle and the enigmatic reflections with the white stripes of the pedestrian crossing suspended across the whole format. Naturally, I added drama with deeper and more exciting colours, but I like the way an ordinary scene can come to life this way. It could be anywhere in the world and even though I like to somehow try and bring in the flavour of the particular city or country of the month's challenge, I just fixed on this one and had fun. This work took me four hours to complete, and there are some changes I would like to make to the composition, but I am leaving it as it is. Enough!

"After the Rain - Piatra-Neam, Romania"
Gouache on Watercolour Paper - 9" x 9"

Click
">HERE for scene painted from Google Maps with their permission.