Near & Far

Erotokritos - third stage

It's been a long week of paperwork, research trips and the like, without much in the way of painting being done at home, so it was something of a relief to pick up the brush again at the Club.

This painting is just about finished. I've lightened the orange banner. which meant the paint was too wet for me to paint in the lettering. I'm not always in favour of lettering on pictures, but in this case, the word EROTOKRITOS was what attracted me to the scene in the first place, so I want it to go in.

I started in on another old one, but my confidence in getting it to work was not as great as it was with the others. I started it about five or six years ago, after my first visit to Venice, and left it more or less like this (although I've now trimmed it to a square):


Canal: first state.

After an hour it looked like this:


Canal: second state

No great advance on the original state. It's proving difficult for the same reasons I gave up on it the first time - the buildings in the distance are awkward in their lack of definition, while the foreground elements are heavy and clearly structured. This ought to make for an interesting contrast, but I think it has eluded me.

I'm also uncomfortable with the overall composition, with it's insistent perspective which doesn't sit well with my current thinking, so I've decided not to continue with this one.