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This is a painting style illustration of “Munzgasse” – a small street leading up from the river into the old city centre of Dresden in Saxonia, Germany. Totally rebuilt since the bombing of 1945 it exudes the old traditional buildings style of the old city.
On this quite narrow street, the cafe’s and restaurants thrive and is always busy.
Taken from an original photograph I’ve tried to move the image much closer to a true painting style, almost impressionistic with blobs of colour and dynamically alternating light giving what I hope is “movement” and life to the finished work.
Dresden street scene
I’ve also used heavier brush stokes here too and accentuated colours to give texture.
The shadow areas under the awnings either side of the street I use to point the viewer inward, leaving any detail within those areas hidden so as not to distract from the image centre.
The sky in the original photograph was pretty much as shown here, rather gray even though the sun was shining but hazy and with little colour. Leaving it as is does focus the viewer more towards the body of the picture where the interest really lies.
Painted to look like oil on canvas I’ve deliberately kept the paint flat with a rather “dry” overall look which I personally like these days.
I took many many photographs of the Dresden streets and am in the process of producing more “paintings” of these as a record of my visit here. So much more satisfying than simple photos which I seem to find a little bland and boring in comparison to high colour painting.
Once the series is complete I may post them as a set and call it “Dresden today” perhaps. I may also post some of the original photographs alongside to show the different effects and emotions that paint and photo engender.
Great fun anyway and always interesting and different, as I travel to many parts of Europe with my little camera. City streets I find so absorbing too, especially the classical European ones.
For me they are so much more architecturally satisfying than any comparable streets in the USA or even in the United Kingdom.
Watch this space….
