One day I was taking photos around Lisbon, and I came across some beautiful stone statues in the middle of lakes set in some of the city’s most beautiful parks. Later, I came across another fountain in a square, which had three of those classic angel-like figures standing below. Taking this photo as reference, setting it in the mood I had witnessed before at the park and adding a malevolent twist I decided to make the painting entitled “Fountain of Hell”.

I opened up a new canvas in Adobe Photoshop with the A4 preset dimension. Using the photo (image 1) as reference, I quickly painted the whole canvas with a medium grey hard-edged brush, trying not to leave any white areas beneath (image 2). This step helps getting an overall balance of value in the painting. It’s important to get a hint of all the elements into the canvas early in the painting process, so that they can then be continually refined simultaneously and in relation to each other.