This little street is a cut-through to the main row of shops and restaurants in Conceicão. I’ve sketched and painted it multiple times.

Using Different Styles

In an earlier post, you can read about how I did a loose urban sketch from life, and then a more precise sketch back at my studio.

Although the studio sketch took longer and the perspective is more accurate, I much prefer my scrappy urban sketch. Although I really like how I rendered the paving stones in the studio sketch.

Black and White version

Tonal studies are a great way to focus on achieving depth in a scene. I’ve watched lots of tutorials where artists actually do a tonal thumbnail before sketching to help they figure out where the shadow areas are. But for this version of this street, I just focused on black and white, and I like the simplicity of the finished sketch.

The 100 Day Project

I couldn’t resist including this scene in my 100 day project challenge, and although I sketched it in my studio, I restricted myself to a 15 minute time-frame for the sketch and watercolour. See my summary of that quick sketch.

This won’t be the last time I paint this view. But I think next time I’m going to try contorting the viewpoint even more dramatically, to accentuate the angles.