Watercolor Artist's Index of the Urban Landscape: A Field Trip of Features and How to Paint Them

The aim of this book is to invite you to join me in my passion for recording the urban environment in watercolor. As you journey through the pages you will see a pattern—on the right-hand page will be a painting on a very specific theme. On the left-hand page will be a set of studies explaining elements found in the main painting. These will not always be evident in the main painting, but they will include the key elements that you will need to observe carefully. To take you through the stages of painting one picture would enable you to paint just that one picture. My aim is to encourage you to stand on your own artistic feet and to tackle any type of scene that you may encounter on your urban wanderings. You will also, from time to time, find step-by-step images. These take you through the three stages of my working practice in “visual real time,” allowing you to observe the buildup of washes and how the addition of the darkest paint can make the middle tones come alive. You might even opt to practice these mini-projects yourself.

A few words about painting techniques. I often refer to “environmental” colors in my notes and annotations. By this I mean the colors of all the surrounding objects that will reflect light and cast shadowing onto the subject being studied. “Local” color might sound more appropriate, but this means something entirely different in art training (that is, the color of any one object without the influences of shade or reflections from other objects). On bright or dull days, these environmental colors will influence the way you see your subject.

The urban environment often lacks much real color, but requires a lot of subtle variations of grays and neutral tones. My standard mixture for these tones is a combination of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. This can be tempered by introducing many levels of dilution. It can be watered down so as to appear almost translucent, or bolstered by using tube paints to act as the darkest of shadows. Sometimes the tone will vary, again, according to the environmental colors that surround you. These tones can also be achieved by creating “palette mud.” This is created by washing together the remnants of all of the colors you have mixed in your palette to create a muddy yet tinted wash.

Finally, you will soon see that I don’t always take my painting out to the four corners or border lines of a precise rectangle. Sometimes a free flow of paint can give a sense of energy to a composition, drawing your eye in to, or out from, the central point. I don’t like any painting to be restricted—especially by four pencil lines!

So, it’s over to you now to dip into the city-themed subjects in the following pages. Copy the studies, or go out and find your own. The fact that you are painting the urban environment is all that matters. Good luck and enjoy it!