I just finished a painting I’ve been working on for a while. I painted it from a photo I took walking along the Tiber river in Umbertide, Umbria, Italy during my Spring visit there to see my sister. It was early Spring and the leaves were just barely coming out on the trees. The mountains in the distance were still brown. There was a row of evergreen trees and their blue-greens contrasted with the yellow-green of early Spring. It was a still day, so there wasn’t much movement in the water. The reflections were clear and sharp. I’m happy enough with the result and I enjoyed painting it.
Since I have my new-found watercolor skills I decided to do a study of this in watercolor before I did the oil. I think this was a good exercise and I might start doing it more. It has several benefits. First, it helps me keep practicing watercolor. Second, I found that doing the watercolor first made me much more familiar with the nuances of the scene, allowing me to capture them in the oil painting, which I probably would not have done otherwise. Below is the study.
