Torre Nubia

Colours were easy to choose today.  I needed a vivid cool blue for the sky, so that was Winsor blue green shade.  To give it a tamer cool blue to blend into lower down, I went for cerulean blue.  I went for rose dore for some much needed pink.  And after looking at the oranges and greens I could get from triads containing Winsor blue GS and rose dore, I decided that raw sienna was the best choice of yellow.  I also threw in burnt sienna to help be get the right colours for the tower and later used some Winsor red in the lake when the rose dore was getting overpowered by blues.  With a cool yellow, two cool blues and three warm reds, this is in the key of green warm.

I started by putting down a drawing with some pretty accurate craftsmanship.  I added some highlights with masking fluid and then gently stroked a candle over the stonework along the edge of the lake, not expecting it to have much effect.

Then I stared on the colours, going from top to bottom.  The sky was Winsor blue GS at the top and cerulean blue at the horizon.  I wanted some vestiges of purple at the very top and should have put in some French ultramarine like I did for The Mukurob but instead tried dropping in some rose dore.  The rose dore looked so horrible and blotchy that I added a second layer of colour all over the sky which I didn’t mind as I wanted the sky to be vivid and because (as it turned out) this made the left face of the tower look especially sunny.  While the sky was wet, I adding some of the greenery on the horizon and allowing it to blend in.

Next after the sky was the tower.  This was always going to be two or three layers of paint.  The shadowy side took three layers, the final layer having various primaries charged in in places for a bit of variation.  The bright side only needed two layers and I was sorely tempted to stick with just the one layer after first coat came out really well.  And after the tower, I filled in all the flat lands on both sides of it, right down to the river line.

I was actually being quite patient up to this point, enjoying a sneaky bit of dad dancing waiting for paint to dry before adding more layers.  But when it came to the water I had to act fast.  Everything had to be painted wet into wet and allowed to blend on the paper.  So that was some stone and grass reflections along the top, cerulean blue water underneath it, Winsor blue GS under that, rose dore salty water at y; bottom and reflections of the sunny and shadowy sides of the Tower in the middle.  I found that the blues were running down into the pink at the bottom and turning it into a muddy neutral colour, so I found myself adding a second layer with Winsor red to get a stronger red that could compete against the blues.  I also put in some horizontal ripples by lifting off paint with kitchen paper.

As an afterthought I threw some salt in the lake when it was almost dry.  Then when everything was dry I rubbed off all the salt and masking fluid and out raw sienna over any white highlights that I thought were too strong.  And that was me done.

And this came out pretty well I reckon.  There’s lots to like about it:

– the textures on the stones that the candle unexpectedly created

– the salty marks in what’s actually supposed to be salty water

– a bit of pink in the lake.  Maybe not as much as I wanted but it’s not too much, which is a good thing.

– an acceptable reflection in the water

– some good, unsaturated greens along the back.  Liron Yanconsky would appreciate these

– and, most if all, the light in the painting.  The dark values sky and the shadow on the right of the tower make the left side look like it’s in bright sunshine.

So, yes, this one has to go in the shop window.