Having completed Shangri-La and been quite pleased with the outcome, I decided to try against an aerial piece. This time I chose an urban scene: Cologne, Germany. Specifically, Cologne Cathedral. “Kolner Dom” follows the same format at Shangri-La at 9′ X 4.5′, with a kneeling spot towards one end. As with Shangri-La, I began by tracing the general forms of the landscape from a projection. However, because of the high detail in the cityscape, it took almost 4 or 5 times as long to do so.

Once I’d traced everything, I began with outlining, and then filling in the 100% blacks, mostly shadows. These will help solidify the basic forms, and provide a clear outline for the rest of the shading.

Below, I’ve finally finished with the blacks, and just barely begun more detailed shading on the cathedral. As with the outline, everything about this piece seems to take weeks rather than days to complete. This will definitely be my most detailed piece so far.