Bergerac, France, 15" x 11".
Place Malbec, a small square in Bergerac, south west France. A fairly quick sketch and the main challenge are all those windows and shutters. The decision is either paint the windows in great detail (but then everything else should be also detailed) or go for a looser approach and miss out the odd window or two and make them all look a little bit different. Also I changed the direction the cars were parked in - I have them facing me and not a side on view.
Limoges, France, 22" x 15"
A square in central Limoges and a hob for local transport like the trams. I tried to go quite warm in the foreground on the left - plenty of burnt sienna and alizarin crimson in the initial wash. The parked cars, being in the shadows had some forced bleeding to allow some 'out of focus' effects. Those cars I think had to be balanced in the composition with one or two larger figures on the right. I used quite a bit more white gouache in the final stages than I normally do with the highlights on figures & cars, window details and shop sign. There is a danger you can overdo these last highlights, so you have to go slow and convince yourself certain areas need that touch up.
Duras, France, 15" x 11".
Place du 11 Novembre - a square in the town of Duras in South West France. The sky was done with a preliminary wash of a dirty colour (whatever was left in my palette from the previous painting) in a random fashion with the side of a mop brush. Then quickly afterwards I dragged in some cerulean blue again with the side of the same brush, meeting the clouds and allowing them to blend with each other. The whole painting was done with two brushes - a medium mop and a smaller mop (size 8).
St Tropez, France, 22" x 15"
The local Gendarmerie building in central St Tropez with all its complicated window shutters! I am still in the process of getting used to this old 'T H Saunders' watercolour paper, the forerunner to the Saunders Waterford brand. It has quite a creamy colour - ideal if you're doing some Mediterranean scene because you have that yellow ochre undertone already. This picture is dominated by some dark shadows. It was fun playing around with the many colours you see in shade.
Saint-Junien, France, 15" x 11".
A central square (well more of a triangle) in a central town in France. I put a fair bit of thought to how I could render the house walls to make them look more authentic. In reality they are a bit shabby chic - here in deep shade, I added in different colours as I went downwards. While the paint was still moist I still added in a bit more pigment of thicker consistency. Then as the base of the buildings was still wet, I painted in the rest of the cars and their shadows.
Payzac, France, 15" x 11".
Market day in the small town of Payzac in the Dordogne region of France. The plan here was to have the alternating horizontal bands of light and darks down through the composition - roof tops, market parasol, car tops and road. I could perhaps made the roof tops a shade lighter. A little bit of neutral tint went into those darker shadows to get a bit more contrast going. I put in a few dabs of bright red to give the impression of fruit for sale.
St Junien, France. 15" x 11".
The Place Deffuas in the town of St Junien central France. Lots of dark shadows and bright sunlight in this one. The left hand building worked well I think, painted very loosely with a medium mop brush and leaving the windows as bare white paper - helps having rough surface paper. the foreground shadows went in last with the two left figures. Composition is helped with the repeating patterns of the angular shadow lines.
Duras, France, 15" x 11".
The Place du 11 Novembre, a small square in the market town of Duras, France. Most of the time with watercolour you paint from light areas first then lay over darker tones. With some bright objects in deep shade I normally paint around them (e.g. the cafe sign and the van on the right) with the dark shadows, then when that's dry I paint those brighter objects with the appropriate colour (with a bit of bleeding if the shadows are still a bit damp).
St Tropez, France, 15" x 11"
So the challenge I set myself was how many windows and shutters I could paint in before I either got bored or gave up. I think the danger with putting too much architectural detail in or making things look too tidy is that you verge on an illustration - not really what I aim for in watercolour. My reference photo was taken on an overcast day so I invented some shadows coming down from the Gendarmerie building on the right. Hopefully it works.
St Tropez, France, 22" x 15".
A corner of the harbour where the sea wall joins a row of restaurants/cafes. The row of boats here I painted in a very loose style but emphasized the bow shapes with the contrast of the dark wall against the lighter hulls. In a similar way the figures were created with the darks of the shadows and a bit of 'negative' painting around their random shapes. I think the darker cool sky worked well against the warm buildings (plenty of alizarin crimson, cadmium orange and yellow ochre in there!).
Painted on my normal Saunders Waterford Rough, 300 gms weight.
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