Day 2, copy after Pissarro's "Place du Carrousel, Paris"

I did not have a good night's sleep last night, but wanted to get back to the National Gallery today to continue work on this copy. I had barely managed to cover all the canvas last week, just to indicate general placement and colors, but I had lots of work to do, and wasn't feeling enthused about it. I got there late and only had about an hour to work before lunch, which was going to be with a visiting group from the Loudoun Sketch Club. After lunch, I decided to take a deep breath and start using more PAINT. This actually made things easier. I corrected the size of the towers (cupulas?) on the roof (I think that's the Louvre back there), mixed up larger batches of color, and started laying them down. I mainly worked on the long building in the distance (the Louvre?), and a little bit on the big truncated building in the foreground on the left. My colors still aren't quite right. They are too bright, but I felt better about it by the end of the day, and am looking forward to getting back into it next time, which won't be until January 9.

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New Copy, "Place du Carrousel, Paris" by Camille Pissarro

It's been quite a few months, but I was finally able to make it back to the National Gallery today to begin a new copy. I chose "Place du Carrousel, Paris" by Camille Pissarro. Painted in 1900, this urban scene was done from a rented room, as when he got older, Pissarro developed eye problems that left him unable to paint outdoors. You can read more about Pissarro and this painting here.

I really like Pissarro, but most of his paintings in the National Gallery are in the smaller rooms, where copyists are not permitted to work. I thought this painting would be fairly simple, but I found out today that it is NOT simple. As usual, I spent a long time measuring and I hope that I got things placed correctly.

Here is Pissarro's original painting:

I was attracted by that strange cropping of the large building on the left. The scene kind of reminds me of the National Mall, where the National Gallery is.

Here is my painting before I went to lunch:

After an enjoyable lunch with my copyist friends, I went back at it and soon discovered how very intricate this painting is! I managed to get the whole canvas covered with paint, a first pass. Next week I will go back into it and start to put more details in. My copy is only 16" x 19", which is pretty small, because the original isn't all that large, and we have to go at least 2" smaller or larger. This is how far I got by the end of the day:

I will undoubtedly need to adjust my drawing and fix the colors, but at least I got the whole canvas painted with a first pass. I enjoyed chatting with museum goers as I worked.

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