Nocturne, Alfama, Lisbon

On By jonathankeeton

Since moving to Portugal, I haven’t post any updates to paintings in a while. But now I am working fairly steadily again, so will start.

Last winter my neighbor here in Portugal went into Lisbon in the middle of the night to take photographs. This painting is from walking around in the Alfama, a beautiful old neighborhood. It’s a crazy complicated image, but  very evocative and moody. Here’s the process:

I used an ochre primatura, and then slowly started laying out the scene using and ink and felt markers
More laying out of the scene. Usually it’s about here that I realize what I’ve gotten myself into.
Now the sketch is done, and it’s time to start painting. There are a million ways to approach this, so I am just going to wade in slowly.
Just the first baby steps of putting paint over the sketch.
Okay, so this is pretty crude, but it gives me something to react to. This is another great place to feel overwhelmed. There’s a little color on most of the walls, and the area where the light is coming from and what it hits is beginning to appear.
This is quite a bit later. Everything has been touched once or twice, but it’s all still pretty funky. Now it’s just a recursive process of working on an area, then another, then adjusting them. There are times when I can’t really see the painting anymore, or can’t stand seeing it, so I work on another painting, which the allows me to come back and see it more clearly.
Here’s the finished painting. It’s such a rich and complex world here, and I often feel like I could work on it for some time still, but other paintings await…

4 thoughts on “Nocturne, Alfama, Lisbon”

  2. Barbara McGuire's avatar Barbara McGuire

    Jonathan,

    Nice to see you posting again. Nailed it!!! I’m guessing that this is Oil or Acrylic? Is the surface canvas or something else.

    I’d love to see some of your watercolors again, but understand that you may have moved on to other pigments for sales reasons.

    Take care,

    Barbara J. McGuire, MD, FACP, MMM bmcguire@swcp.com 505-235-1375

    Apex Visual Art: https://www.apexvisualart.com Wondrous Watercolor Art and Distinctive Digital Photography Remember, 50% of all AVA purchases, after expenses, donated to Doctors Without Borders – delivering medical care and relief of suffering worldwide. Let the beauty we love be what we do. ~ Rumi

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