Period Building Painting

Learn to Paint in Watercolour with 50 Small Paintings

Posted by Search Press

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Symmetry and proportion
With some subjects, such as landscapes and flowers, you can get away with certain elements being a bit too big or too small, or not being in exactly the right place. When you’re drawing and painting buildings, however, it’s crucial to get the proportions right and assess where the various features – doors, windows and archways – sit in relation to each other.

Colour palette
• Lunar Black
• Payne’s Grey• Buff Titanium (or mix diluted Yellow Ochre
with a touch of White)
• Burnt Sienna
• Alizarin Crimson
• Yellow Ochre
• Cerulean Blue

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You Will Need (4 things)

  • Watercolour Canvas block, 355 x 254mm (14 x 10in)
  • H Pencil
  • 2B Pencil
  • Size 20 and 6 round Brushes

Steps (6 steps, 60 minutes)

  1. 1

    Use an H pencil to draw the initial guidelines – the placement of the floors, columns and windows. Then use a 2B pencil to add the
    architectural details. Starting with an H pencil is a more forgiving method for roughly laying out an architectural drawing like this. If you draw lightly, you can leave guidelines that can be easily rubbed out. Moving on with a 2B pencil, you can concentrate on making expressive lines with the faint underdrawing below as a guide.

  2. 2

    Add a light wash of Lunar Black or Payne’s Grey to the brickwork using the larger brush. Leave to dry.

  3. 3

    Start adding washes of colour to the whole of
    the building. Use the smaller brush and Buff
    Titanium (or very light Yellow Ochre with a
    touch of White) for the mouldings around the
    windows and Burnt Sienna for the brickwork.

  4. 4

    To add depth and texture, use a diluted mix of
    Payne’s Grey and Alizarin Crimson and the
    smaller brush to paint the bricks using a dashed
    line – strokes can be quite loose. Once dry, go
    back over some areas to make them darker.

  5. 5

    Now focus on details. You can define areas like
    the bench, reflections in the windows and the
    figure walking by.

  6. 6

    Add the sky and pavement: the sky is a mix
    of very dilute washes of Yellow Ochre, Cerulean
    Blue and Alizarin Crimson; the pavement is a mix
    of Cerulean Blue and Alizarin Crimson.