Simplify and Focus.

St. Stephan's Cathedral - photo by Jeff Welter

At the very center of Vienna is the St. Stephan's Cathedral.  Construction for this church began in the 1300's, but it sits on the site of two even older structures built for worship.  Before the Christians, it was the site of a pagan Roman temple.  Some of the oldest remains can be seen underground in the U-Bahn station nearby. 

"Wait for It" 7" x 5" oil on "Gessobord" c. 2012

Walking around this intricate Gothic style church, it was hard to get a decent picture because it is so large and there is so much detail.  I did like the Gargoyle dog waterspouts and I took a few pictures because I thought I could see a few pigeons perched way up there on those stone dogs.

I was so delighted when I got home where I could enlarge the photos on the computer and found some fun images.  It pays when there is too much detail to simplify!   Even with a very limited close-up view, it still took quite a bit of time for me to get those details right.   I chose a simple palette for this painting: Manganese blue, Yellow Ochre, and    Alizarin Crimson--plus black and white.