Old man and bike

This month’s Virtual Paintout is taking us to Poland, in the city of Gdansk, where I found this charismatic old man walking next to his bicycle across the tramway crossing.

The painting turned out to be more complicated than I though. I painted this one in three sittings which is unusual for a VP painting where the longest usually is 2 sittings at most.

First, second and third sittings (click to enlarge)

I must say that I wasn’t very satisfied with the background at first. I knew it had to be out of focus to not distract from the main subject, but I thought that it was too out of focus on my first sitting.

Close-up view of the details on the bicycle

On the 2nd sitting I added another variety of green to the grass in the far back. I added touch of colours, contrast and more definition to the pavement, more as we get closer. I modified the shadow on the ground as I realized that I’ve made a mistake. Finally, I started painting the old man.

On the 3rd and last sitting, I worked mostly on the bicycle and added more contrast to the old man, on his face and hands mostly.