Marktplatz, Basel

Basel used to be my home town, and after a break of two years, it was great to go back for a visit. Basel has a wonderful old town with the Marktplatz at its centre. What drew me to paint this scene were the late afternoon shadows splitting the houses diagonally.

It's always a challenge to simplify a busy scene and I decided not to include bicycles and street furniture, which I felt would detract from the main idea of the painting.

Painting a busy scene

Every so often, I have looked at my reference of Temple Bar and thought it would make a good painting. Certainly its architecture is beautiful, but the focus for this painting was going to be people going about their business.

Here are some progress shots about my process:

I usually start with the background but decided I would paint the crowd first.

I then started on the buildings:

Next came Temple Bar itself. I deliberately did not make it as tall as it is in reality to keep the people as an important part of the composition.

Finally, I felt it needed some directional lines on the ground.