Venezia

I just got back from an AMAZING trip to Italy: Milan, Rome, Florence and Venice are all so beautiful... Seeing so much art everywhere was incredible. I finally saw some classic Renaissance pieces I always dreamed of, and it does make a difference to see them in person.

I was inspired to create a new piece based on my own reference pictures (took 2500+). I started with the idea of wildly exaggerating proportions of the Venetian architecture...

... then I looked for moods and different times of the day...

... then I did a quick tonal study to make sure the layout and the lighting worked together, and I started painting from there.
I think this is the last "realistic" rendering I'll do for a while, but it was very interesting to do.
UPDATE:
I just uploaded a slightly altered version of the main image (I was not happy with the colors) and it's also a bit bigger.