New Painting: The Temple

A couple months back I was chatting with my Sister-in-law Debbie about my paintings. And she asked if I wouldn't mind painting the temple were she and my brother got married. It's one of my favorite temples, located in Portland, OR. I had never attempted painting a temple before so it was fun to try. She wanted it on 11x14 flat canvas, so it would be easy to frame.

Every week I would send an update on the progress. My little nephews loved seeing what I had done. So I thought I'd share the photos of my work in progress:

The rough sketch of where I wanted things

Week 1 - I painted the sky and got an idea of where I wanted the trees

Week 2 - I did a rough paint of the temple and walkways

Week 3 - Cleaned up the temple, added where I wanted the tree trunks and blocked out the reflecting pool

Week 4 - Gave some definition to the trees and walkways

Week 5 - Added shading to bushes and trees. And did a few minor touch ups to the Temple

And after six weeks of painting and waiting for the paint to dry, oils can take so long to dry, I finally finished adding some flowers to the bushes around the reflecting pool. Here is the completed work of art:

I'm pretty happy with it but the most important thing is Debbie loves it. So now to let it dry and I'll be able to send it out to them.