The Urban Landscape with Bennett Vadnais

As part of our ongoing series of engaging Teaching Studios faculty on what they are working on in their studios, Bennett Vadnais has agreed to share some images and thoughts from one of his latest paintings. This one is still very much in-progress.

I began this painting by doing many studies of the subject outdoors. This included quick color studies to capture the light effect as well as several pencil drawings that explore the form and structure of the architecture.

After gathering this material I enlarged the composition to my canvas and painted it in monochrome. For landscape subjects I’ll often use Mars Violet with white. I work out drawing and value patterns in this monochrome before applying color in many layers that range from transparent to opaque.