Water gate in Venice | Watercolor painting

by WatercolorWall | Handmade paintings

This handmade watercolour painting of an ancient green water gate in Venice shows my interest in medieval cities and architecture. This work also highlights the urban decay of Venice.
Hand-painted in watercolour, this painting consists of many transparent layers of paint superimposed with brush on a smooth (hot pressed) watercolour paper. The colour palette consists of soft ochre yellow, terracotta and pink pastels, brown earthy and rusty colours and powerful classic greens in the old water gate and ultramarine and petrol blue colours in the waters of the Adriatic Sea.

The painting shows old elements, such as rusty window ornaments, old brick, rust, moss, an old wooden door and bright blue sea water.
The visible erosion of the crumbling plaster near the bricks, the rusty iron of the ornate lattice ornaments and the bright ultramarine water give the painting the typical Venetian look.

Venice is a very old medieval city built on water. The houses rest on wooden posts driven into the soft ground of the lagoon. Venice has over 175 canals where thousands of boats sail every day. Hence, most of the houses and businesses in Venice have a water gate, so that people and goods can easily enter the buildings by boat.

On a scenic gondola ride, I came across this water gate.
The old architecture, decay, earthy colour contrasts and the beautiful details of the woodwork and iron window ornaments appealed to me. I took a picture of it from the gondola.
A few weeks later in my studio, I decided to repaint the photo into an atmospheric watercolour painting.
The original painting is painted at a size of 220x300mm on a 300gsm watercolour paper. The original watercolour is part of my own private collection.