Progressive steps of painting: "Sortavala Cathedral"

Drawing is always my starting point - also when painting. I am basically a drawer, not a painter. I will paint drawings - so simple it really is.

The idea to paint Sortavala Cathedral (situated in Russian Carelia, on the shore of the great lake Ladoga / Laatokka, not far away from the border between Russia and Finland) originally arose when discussing with Maria, a student of Orthodox church music, whose father serves  Sortavala Orthodox parish as its Senior Father. I have received some photos of the cathedral from Sortavala and, after some problems with the perspective, I finally got an satisfying result where the vertical lines and shapes of the building matched (as every photographer knows, it is not an easy task because the straightening of the lines will also affect the basic forms of the walls).

Now I have reached the first step: to draw the sketch of the cathedral:

Then I started to fill the shapes with acrylic colours. That is true: I chose the shades which matched to the colours of the photo - like working with a childrens' colouring booklet. The lines of ink still stayded visible.

Hours of active painting...Acrylic colours were much better than oil colours because they dried faster and corrections were could be done very soon when needed. In addition, they gave no odors into my kitchen...

After several nights' work the final step was reached: the drying of the complete, modest piece of art.

New technique for Sortavala Church - accidentally!

Two large ink spots covered this drawing last night when I was joining our local art school. "What to do?", I was thinking. Could the problem be covered in some way? My teacher Minna suggested that I can use acrylic white to hide the spots (still seen in the middle of the drawing).

This was the way I found a new technique for my drawings: first pencil, the ink and, at last, acrylics! Goodbye, for awhile, colour pencils!