The completed Mission Santa Clara Oil Painting

I (finally) finished my first oil painting of 2014 today! Actually, as paintings go, this one didn't take any longer (as in number of hours or sessions) as any other painting I've done. It's just that I've only been able to work on this one when I'm back in San Francisco, so the work has been spread out over 5 months. :)


"Mission Santa Clara"
2014
oil on canvas
24 x 24 inches

Now that I'm looking through my calendar, I see that I spent four sessions on this.

The original photograph was taken by my Gay Boyfriend, Spencer. He works at Santa Clara University, and had taken this beautiful photo of the Mission during sunset in December.


the original photo

I first started this painting way back in early January, right before we moved to Bellevue. This painting didn't require much of a pencil sketch on the canvas before painting. I did a very rough sketch, but did a lot of painting the first day. The canvas was filled, and the general tone was set during the first session.


Session One

My second session with this painting didn't happen until the end of March. I had tried to paint a couple of weeks earlier, but that's when I was sick, and wasn't able to get anything done.

I focused mainly on the sky during the second session.


Session Two

My third session was just about three weeks ago, where I focused mainly on the main building and foreground.


Session Three

Today was session number four. I knew we were getting close to finishing, and there was one more important element I needed to add: in the original photo, you can see that it is Christmastime, and there's a large Christmas Tree in front of the Mission. Between the Christmas Tree, and the darkness of the silhouette, you can't see the cross in front of the mission. Spencer informed me that the cross was a crucial part of the Mission (which makes sense), so I wanted to represent it in the painting.

I did a search online, and found this daytime photo. It shows the cross, but it also shows that there's another tower in the Mission! Oops! Totally missed that before. Now that I look closely at my original photo, I can barely make it out, but it's in there.


a daytime photo of Mission Santa Clara - clearly showing the other tower

So today, the big change was the addition of the second tower, which I think makes the whole composition look soooo much better. It balances it out, and helps it look less symmetrical (something you try to avoid in painting compositions).

I also added the cross (fairly discreetly, as I didn't want it to be major focal point of the painting) and reworked the sky near around the palm trees. I also fiddled a little more with the color in the foreground.

Near the end of today's session, Dean and I both agreed that it was done. It's always a great sense of satisfaction to complete a new painting! :)

All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out. It was a very different type of subject matter for me, with the strong sunset colors, and the building/trees in silhouette. I think my favorite thing about it, is that the top 2/3 of the painting is like an abstract painting that flows down to the more structured focus below. I also like the bright colors in the sunset, and how they work together.


Session Four - the completed painting


Here is a frame that I'm going to put around the new Mission Santa Clara Painting