When I last posted, I talked about painting a scene in the rain, with wet surfaces, something I have always found to be tricky. I showed a painting of our visit to Burano on a wet day which worked quite well. I wonder if I can do it again.

A couple of years ago, we went with the family to Paris and then on to Eurodisney. ( I enjoyed Eurodisney much more than I thought, incidentally). The two photographs which I am going to use are above, showing the queue into the cathedral and also my granddaughter Lola having great fun chasing the pigeons at the same time

I was more interested in creating a mood in this picture rather than drawing accurate figures. Heads down against the weather, just wishing we could get inside

I want to use them both in the composition. I think the child with pigeons will make a strong foreground against the other picture. We shall see

Using a simple grid I did a freehand drawing of the cathedral with the figures in the rain. I added some more to the left to make the queue longer and also extended the tent/marquee which had been erected in front of the cathedral. That decision would come back to haunt me later on. I then did exactly the same exercise with the child and birds, guessing the proportions as best I could. The next step was to transfer the child drawing onto tracing paper, which I then slid across and back the cathedral drawing to best judge the correct proportion between the two

completed composition

I am sorry this picture is rather dark. I had given it a coat of grey/green watercolour mix to establish the mood. Mixed from French Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Orange. The figures in blue are masked out as I want them to have light coloured raincoats. I thought the relationship worked well. The child’s head is just overlapping one of the figures so they look part of the same scene.

I now have some painting to do, and will publish that as second part, probably during the week

Don’t forget I am always interested to hear from other painters who can give me tips how to improve my work

Prague 2015

I composed this watercolour from my own photograph. The square was very crowded that day so I have simplified the background to avoid confusion. I did spend some time on the beautiful Tyn Church getting those needle-sharp spires as correct as possible

I used a limited pallette for best effect.  Just six colours, which were mostly blends. The underlying colour was Raw Sienna mixed with Naples Yellow to give the feel of bright sunlight. Shadows were provided with Violet modified with Sennelier Transparent Brown. Sharp colours in the foreground were mostly cadmium red and ultramarine blue

I have had great sales success with my Montmartre, Paris series. It would be great if Prague paintings prove to be of interest, as I have so much more material. Such a paintable city