I didn’t get as much time in Canterbury today as I would
have liked, we didn’t get there until about 1 o’clock and by 3.30 the light
inside the café wasn’t really strong enough to see what I was putting on the
paper properly.
I rather like the concept behind this picture, which was to
draw a very loose sketch and then put the detail on it afterwards.
Anyway here are the before and after pictures of the
watercolour of Canterbury Cathedral from The Chocolate Café in Canterbury
today.
The business of painting people is much more difficult than
the business of painting buildings, unless of course you are happy painting
from a photograph, which I am not and painting people’s faces in a fairly small
size, using watercolour is tricky.
Anyway I wound up doing this pretty much in the dark, so the
likenesses could be better, I could see the people I was painting properly, but
not the paper well enough to distinguish colours. Hence the porcelain doll problem, I just couldn't distinguish a pale flesh wash from plain water.
It got progressively darker from left to right with the one on the furthest to the right I could't see much in the way of shades at all
