I've wanted to paint this view for some time but was struggling with the composition. I walk along here regularly and I've painted a house just out of site round the bend previously. I like the architecture. I finally settled on this by creating an imaginary viewpoint which squeezed in the houses on the left and opened up the view of the frontages on the right. It works because the houses vanishing on the left allows the perspective to work (otherwise tehre would be an infeasibly narrow road). The idea in my head was that the deep shade on the right hand side would emphasise the sunshine on the cottages on the left and the focal point would be that last cottage and the road winding up behind it.
The challenges were the tricky perspectives on the right and getting the tones correct so that the dark effect is created without making the picture dark and without losing the identifying colours of the buildings themselves. A classic cool tones on the right, warm tones on the left. I find mixing colours in acrylic much harder than in watercolour and acrylic can be very garish. There was also a lot of road and pavement and I wanted that to be interesting too. My initial photographs were on a cloudy day so I went back when there was some sunshine and I'm so glad I did! Those deep shadows cast by The Cross are a key part of the painting as you will see.
I chose to do this in a portrait format because I thought the light and shade contrast would work better and also that amount of grey road and pavement would be reduced. My initial sketch was very rudimentary and didn't really help me other than in the most basic way. My drawing wasn't great and the perspective was way off - a bad start. I probably should have started again because not only does it not help the process but my mindset was instantly negative. I was already thinking about what order to paint things to give me the basic anchor points in the painting but also to give me hope that it could work out in the end. At this stage none of the 'worry points' about the picture are being addressed.
I followed my usual process of getting the sky in and then decided to start working on the nearest buildings on the right. The hardest perspective was the area above the doorway and this architecture is pretty fundamental to identifying the building so I kept returning to that throughout the painting.
I was pretty concerned at this point because the image is very flat and I realised it was going to be a while before I could get the basics right. You can see the perspective line in the bottom and top right hand side corner has been clarified too. This is quite a big painting for me - A2 - so it took a long time to get to this point. As usual the checking process is through taking photographs to critique and walking away from the painting regularly.
That process really helped when I got to this point. There is a lot of paint on the canvas by this stage. The brickwork on the right looks garish. I was happy with the cottages and the roofline on the left. There was a huge amount of flat grey and the vertical brush strokes emphasise it. I also realised the tone of the sky was still way too dark and the detail in the vanishing point as the road winds up needed a lot of work too. I was happy that the verticals in the foreground were better and most of the perspective issues were getting resolved. I was starting to have a little faith in the picture and I was looking forward to the next morning's painting as potentially the make or break.
Those shadows on the road are incredible. They make such an enormous instant difference to the painting - not only their interesting shape but they give structure to the buildings and the road, add balance to the tones on the right and somehow 'cast shadow' onto the buildings. All of a sudden any highlights start to pop and so the area above the door began to work. I was also enjoying the window on the right and the hint of the blinds through the glass. Lightening the sky began to make the tree line and the definition around the curve in the road work much better. At this point I was beginning to think about how much road furniture to include - there are a lot of drains, telegraph poles, road markings etc and sometimes these can add perspective or interesting lines. In this case I decided to make sure the road 'read' well but otherwise I wanted to leave it uncluttered.
The last stages were all about light. I wanted the strong sunshine to be felt so I lightened the houses opposite and really enjoyed adding the little highlights on the hanging baskets as the sun comes over the ridge tiles catching the tips of some flowers and also on the roofline and tiles. I was happy with the pavement effect on the right hand side too - it adds to the perspective and reflects that this pavement is often wet due to watering the hanging baskets. I think the road markings help to indicate a proper width to the road and help the composition without being too strong.
I don't think I have done another painting for a while which has had such a transformational moment. Those early stages are all about belief that you are doing the right thing. In this painting I was also playing with cool and warm tones which I don't find easy - especially when there are some subtle colours in the buildings on the right hand side anyway.
My lessons for this painting are 1. Concentrate on the initial drawing/outlining - especially in the areas of concern 2. Trust the process but keep looking hard 3. Remember the initial idea for the painting and what you were trying to convey
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