Portuguese Bridge at Sunset

Portuguese Bridge at Sunset   (Originally uploaded by randubnick)

I came across this little painting today, and decided to photograph it to add to my computer files. I painted this little watercolor sketch a few years ago, during one of my visits to Porto, Portugal.  Most of my other watercolors of Portugal were done from photographs after I got back home. But in this case, I was working only from visual memories that were quite vivid (and recent at the time).  During my visits to Porto, the daily routine usually includes several opportunities to drive along the Douro River.  I always love to see the houses with along the winding river banks, and the beautiful bridges. But the views at sunset are especially wonderful. During my stay, I took advantage of a quiet half hour indoors to create this little watercolor sketch, using my travel watercolor set.  I had no photographs to use as reference because they were still in my disposable camera! But I thought I might be able to recreate the scene from memory.  I wasn't sure of the details of the bridge, but then, there are a number of wonderful bridges in Porto. What I remembered most clearly was the magical scene of the colorful clouds seen through the bridge at sunset.  Well, this watercolor sketch is very small, only 8 x 5 inches, but it holds many great memories per square inch!