I’m really enjoying my 30×30 Baroque building project for this year’s 30×30 challenge. But I will freely admit that it’s getting increasingly hard to find the time each day (especially now that I’m actively involved in the Live Version of my Watercolour course!)

This past week I had two evenings when I had to do two sketches in order to catch up and so there has been less research happening. However, I am definitely getting into a rhythm and enjoying painting the details with a fine brush (an extended point brush shared last week here). I also created another Reel for Instagram… and I’ve saved a number of screenshots so that I can explain in more detail my steps – at the end of this article.

Without any further ado.. here are my recent direct watercolour  Baroque sketches.

S. Nicola Da Tolentino. This is not a particularly significant facade but I needed an ‘easy’ one for the start of the week. I used Van Dyck Brown for the details.

SS. Trinita Dei Pellegrini. Another facade that is not that well known but I remember walking past it one evening during my 2010 trip.

Here is the full spread of these two buildings.

S Marcello al Corso – a facade that I like a lot and enjoyed sketching it on location in 2010. I did this whole sketch using my usual 1.2 inch dagger brush and didn’t use the extended point.

And then I did another very quick and loose version of it.

Here is the full spread.

S. Celso E Giuliano – another facade that I sketched back in 2010 and really like. I would like to explore its details more in the future.

The full spread with a partial elevational diagram.

Now for the steps I used in this sketch…

Mapping out the structure using my 1/2 inch dagger and a Monte Amiata Natural Sienna(MANS)-based wash. I added some splashes at the end.

I added some purple to shadow areas before switching to the extended point to define the details.

More details – I used both a purple wash and a MANS-based wash for the details.

Back to the dagger for some more shadows.

A few more details and then I left it alone.

In summary, in this sketch I worked: structure-shadows-details-shadow-details. This is not the way I tackle every Baroque sketch but it’s the approach I used on this occasion.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing these in-progress photos!