Piazza del Popolo

Had another sketching session with the students yesterday morning, and I managed to do a couple quick drawings. This was the second one I did, directly in watercolor without any setup sketch in pencil. I only had about 15 or 20 minutes before we had to pop in for a visit to Santa Maria del Popolo before it closed at noon (wanted to show the students the Caravaggio paintings there), so I was having to paint quickly. I did this same view a year ago in charcoal (which can be seen here). I didn't have more time then, but not having to think about color and work with paints led to better results. But I'm really trying to do more watercolor this year, and I'm finding that setting up the drawing with pencil first is too tedious for me and leads to a paint-by-numbers approach that I'm rarely very happy with. So, while I think the charcoal version of this sketch is more interesting and effective somehow, this was a good effort as well and I look forward to furthering this approach to sketching with watercolor.