A pleasant little stroll down a lane leads to this wonderful little scene. What a quaint small town, but this isn't Italy! This image is in Barcelona, Spain and was inspired by a small painting I own.

I often don't really 'look' at what I'm sketching and don't notice the subtleties of the the scene. What are the shapes of the different elements and do those shapes create a single form? As you can see in this painting the actual buildings themselves are multileveled, pointed, square and angled. Not having a single contiguous form adds interest. This is the second painting I've done lately that features a spire, an obvious focal point which catches the eye and brings the eye down into the painting. You'll notice here that I've actually sketched the tower to reach outside the painting 'box' and pierce the sky above.

Light affects the elements in this painting and you can see again that shadows are both long and short , darker and lighter depending on where they are in the scene. Colors here are muted other than the tower which I painted darker to give it an even more striking appearance. And the sunlit courtyard below adds the element of mystery and leads the mind to explore the painting.