Art Class - week #7

Well, after two weeks with no  art class, it was good to get back into the swing of things. I had saved the elaborate drawing of Cotton Manor coffee shop for painting at class, not touching it at home. Like I said in my last blog, I wanted to get some advice from our tutor before attempting to paint this tricky scene. Although you can only see a small section of the picture here, there are a great many people to paint and although this doesn't worry me, there are some background details I needed a little help on how to go about it. For instance, there is no sky in this one, just a mingling of trees, shrubs and buildings and roofs. There is also much shading under the eaves of one large building (not shown in this clip). I mean, to get the darker shading, is it best to use a darker colour from the onset, or would it be better to lay the wash for the whole brick wall and then go over with a darker layer later?

Anyway, I have managed to get some paint on the scene and although it doesn't look like much has been happening, I decided to paint every brick in the background building on the right, which turned out to be very time consuming. Most of time I usually work quickly and suggest this sort of detail, but I am working to new rules on this one. Hopefully I will get round to painting some of the characters next week.

Summing up, I am fairy happy with things so far, but again I am making mistakes, some silly ones too. Not paying enough attention to the stone building, I ended up painting the shadows in the recesses round the windows on the wrong side! I also managed to paint the first wash on the large roof of the left building (out of sight here) too dark, and according to 'Miss', the wrong shade of slate! Again I forgot the rules that she showed me a few weeks back - fold the photo and match it against a sample of the colour you have mixed to check the shade - doh! I also got told off for using Pain's grey, rather than mixing a grey form other colours to get a softer tone - you can just see it near the centre at the bottom of the hedge. Also I think I have made the mortar between some of the bricks too thick considering how far away the building is.

There is still so much for me to learn and it is niggling that I make some of the same mistakes again. I mean, haven't I learned anything? I will just have to put these things down to 'senior moments', of which I seem to have all too frequently these days!