The National Gallery

Story

When I lived in London, I was able to easily reach The National Gallery by catching one bus from my flat. It's one of my favourite art museums and I've spent many hours inside it.

An aspect I really enjoyed with this painting is that it was the first time that I went to a location and took my own reference photos. This process is my favourite way of painting, where I construct a painting from my own unique reference images.

Technical

I was interested in architecture at this time so I was happy with the result of how the building came out on the left side of the painting. I found it fascinating how the form of the shadows were key for how to express the form of the building from a distance.

I struggled with achieving the correct colours, as I was trying to achieve a sunlit scene but found it difficult to find the right shades as the urban setting was very grey and I didn't want the piece to become too drab.

Looking back on this piece, I should have gone for simpler cloud formations. I was trying to capture a complicated formation from my reference photo but with hindsight this piece did not need it and something simpler would have given a better composition and been easier to achieve.

On the other hand, I was pleased with the decision I made to move Nelson's Column to the right. This made the painting less realistic, but made the composition more pleasing to my eye. This was a good lesson for me as it showed me that these types of changes are worthwhile to do, and bending reality to improve the artistic result is a fun thing to do.