Painting a nightscape

Browsing through various art magazines, I am impressed by a few watercolour paintings depicting a city at night so I wanted to try my hand on it too.

Last Summer, while vacationing in Italy, I took a photo of the Bridge of the Saint Archangel in Rome at night, being impressed by the lights and reflections in the water.

My first impulse was to sketch in pencil to simplify the scene and decide on the highlights. In the resulting drawing, I highlighted the cupola of Saint Peter’s Basilica and the outline of the Bridge itself.

Painting the darks took many layers of watercolour. I should have increased the value of any by using less water during the mixing. Lesson learned. But here is the result of my work.