Painting the Palace of the Credit Bank

Revisiting my collection of digital photos from past vacations, I came across a picture of a beautiful building in my city of birth, Timisoara. Its construction was complete in 1912 with the architectural plans of Szekely Laszlo. Initially, it served as the Credit Bank’s head office in the city, and later it was repurposed for various commercial purposes.

I still remember being mesmerized by its design. The architectural design belongs to the Art Nouveau school, in the Hungarian Secession, characterized by various folk motifs that decorate the otherwise perfectly balanced contours of the form.

As I usually do, I started with a sketch, imagining the scheme with a highlight on the lower quarter of the drawing.

My plan is to reuse the sketch for more studies of light, not only the one when Summer Sun shines at noon over the facade of the building.

This first study in watercolour is on 11×15-inch Arches paper, using colors from Daniel Smith (Ultramarine Blue, Burned Sienna, Light Raw Sienna and smaller others).