Notre Dame Cathedral, France

This painting echos the very first post I made on this blog. In this version, done more recently in Paris, I am sitting outside of the left wall of Notre Dame Cathedral looking at the apse. In the forground you see the fence and the garden that surrounds the back of the cathedral; the first time I painted Notre Dame I was sitting in the same park but looking straight on the apse. In the side-view, I was better able to capture the elegant flying buttresses, and some of the detailing on the spires and windows.

It is quite difficult to capture a lot of detail on a small piece of paper, especially when it is cool and overcast weather conditions. In this case I started by putting down the brick colour, a sort of warm grey. As it was drying I worked on the fence line at the bottom, adding the green vines before the fence. I then waited for the brown shape of the cathedral to dry, as parts of it dried I put the details on top using simple outlines with a darker grey colour. I then laid down the shadows and finally the sky, which is just a mixture of pale yellows reds and blues that are barely visible. You can see where I misjudged the wetness, one of the spires on the right bled into the sky. Instead of trying to fix the problem, I just left it, it kind of makes it look like there is a bit of fog or something.

7.5 x 11" cold press, fall 2012