Sketch for Ostia Antica painting, done in quick lines, using some ballpoint pens, pencil, highlighters and colored pencils.

Always, as soon as I get the idea about the new canvas I want to paint, I make a quick sketch. The purpose of sketching at this point isn’t making a correct documentary drawing any more. For the proportions, materials, light, atmosphere, color scheme, basically all I have to know, has already been investigated and has become clear by now. No secret I sometimes need a plenty of time to arrive to that exact point of the painting process. Yet I always make this final quick sketch just before I start my work on the canvas, just to have some reference points for the further work. As a matter of fact at this stage I always have the entire painting in my mind, together with the whole color scheme. And from here on even picking the oil color tubes works as part of the painting process, the chosen colors go to the palette immediately. So from that point of view I even wouldn’t need a sketch. But as the unpredictable event may interrupt my working process, like a single phone call, so I need to have a sketch. Not to remember what the painting should look like, but just as a sort of a ticket back to my painting planet…..