We’ve ridden our bikes up to Lissewege a few times this summer. Every time we turn north onto the Zeebrugge canal, I’ve been struck by the span of a big, white bridge, just as the canal widens towards the sea. So even though it’s a half hour bike ride from home, last Monday I decided to try my luck in capturing it.

I biked out on a sunny day and spent about four hours getting down a relatively detailed drawing – directly onto my gessoed panel. I moved through the free sketch of a charcoal pencil, to the more decisive silverpoint nib and finally committed myself to a finished design using India ink. By that point it was both a composition and a value study. When you spend four hours on location, studying shapes and light, you learn to read the three dimensionality of the scene before you, so that whatever values you end up placing there need to tell that story. See image to the left.

Friday the forecast was for warm and clear skies. I decided to go out. I also wanted to test out my new $$ tripod(!). Its connection to the bracket on the underside of my painting box was solid (no more wobbles) plus the legs themselves were very sturdy. Worth the upgrade (but I do need to sell more paintings to cover that expense! 😉 ).

I spent another four hours laying in color, moving through a lean, mid-value underpainting to the definitive highlights and shadows of the final piece you see here. The strong white values of the central bridge dominate the composition while the interstices of the upper supports were defo an exercise for MC Escher himself (!). I couldn’t have rendered them in white paint without having already done my homework in the preparatory drawing stage. Despite their long horizontal slants the (two) bridges balance out compositionally by the path and the water. I like it.

As it turns out, I worked with a limited palette: lead white, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow light, raw umber and ultramarine blue. That’s it! Whenever possible it is good to work with a limited palette, it reduces the choices plus assists in creating a visual harmony. In the end, a success. A completed painting – and yes, in just one session. That’s the third one of this season: hooray! I might finally be on to something. 😉

If you are interested in hanging this on your wall, please contact me.