Utrecht’s 60th Anniversary Art Competition

Piazza Tasso in Feburary

Piazza Tasso in February

My plein air painting of Piazza Tasso in February won first place in the oil painting category of Utrecht Art supplies 60th Anniversary Art Competition. I never really enter painting contests so this is pretty cool for me.

The painting itself was the largest plein air cityscape I had done at the time. To get the view I wanted I also had to stand in the road on a rather busy street which made things difficult. As the subject was a commission I first tried to get the Piazza with sunlight on it but, like painting flower gardens, to get the colors to come out it was actually better on overcast days. To paint the empty parking lot meant working on Sunday mornings every other week because of the street cleaning.

The great failure for me in the painting is the white car, which everyone recognizes immediately as a Fiat Panda, but it was a Fiat Uno and I botched the shape.