Painting buildings
Tissa Hewavitarane
Buildings, boats, trees, fences and rocks all make fascinating
painting subjects especially when they have grown a little weather
beaten due to the ravages of time and exposure to the elements.
A lot of beginners tend to
shy away from painting buildings because they think an intricate
knowledge of the rules of perspective is required. It is not so,
in every painting.
One can avoid the problems of complicated
perspective by painting a house or a building from a
straightforward view - point. |
For the watercolour painter, the challenge lies in knowing how to
render a convincing illusion of weathered textures, without overworking
the painting.
A lot of beginners tend to shy away from painting buildings because
they think an intricate knowledge of the rules of perspective is
required. It is not so, in every painting. One can avoid the problems of
complicated perspective by painting a house or a building from a
straightforward view - point.
You cannot avoid buildings for long if you are painting landscapes.
You must learn to make them look convincing and be able to portray the
texture of their materials - stone walls, thatch houses, tiles, bricks
or clapboards.
One of the most common faults with texture is overworking. Beginners
often believe it is necessary to indicate every brick in a wall or to
show every tile on a roof.
They take hours painstakingly, and needlessly, painting row after row
of these. It is difficult to convince people that suggestion is the key,
that it's only necessary to show details in small portions of the wall
or roof, and the viewers will fit in the rest themselves.
Basic construction
Let's begin with the basic construction of the building, be it a
house, temple or a church or a tower. You've to mentally strip it of all
its trappings, decoration and detail, and regard it in its simplest
form.
However complex and daunting a building looks at first sight, once
its broken down into geometricshapes such as cubes and cones with
squares, triangles or oblongs attached to them, it's not so daunting.
Combine this thinking with the basic rules of perspective. Once
you've got these simple shapes looking right you can start adding the
details, like windows and doors. But many beginners seem to want to do
these first, like a builder trying to paper the walls before he's
finished the foundations properly.
This is because - its the desire to see how at least one bit of the
painting will look when it's finished, but there's nothing more
disheartening than spending hours on the details only to find that the
basic shape or perspective is wrong and the whole thing is ruined.
Light and shade
Once having got your basic drawing done, the next thing you have got
to think about is light and shade. The usual mistake here is that not
enough thought is given to the lighting, and the result is that a
building looks flat and anaemic.
It seems fairly obvious that if you can see two sides of a building
one should be darker than the other to give it solidity and depth. this
fact often seems to be forgotten once a painting is in progress.
Try putting a little pencilled cross on one top corner of your
painting to remind you of the direction of the light. It will also help
you to get right the angle the shadows are cast.
Using very dark areas on a building would always make it look
dramatic and the use of counter change, as described previously, is very
important. Putting a dark tree behind a light roof to throw it up
tonally, or placing the lightest part of the sky behind a dark building,
are both effects you should be using in your paintings.
Don't neglect the use of smaller incidental shadows - the shadow
under the guttering to show up the edge of the roof, under the window
openings to give them depth; a chimney can be made to stand out by
emphasising its shadow on the roof.
Remember the darker the shadow the brighter the adjacent parts
appear. If the light, at the time you are painting a building, is not
very bright you can use your imagination a bit and intensify the
shadows, as long as their direction is consistent.
And that cross, I mentioned earlier will make sure you don't slip up.
The form of an object is revealed by the contrast of light and shade on
its surface, so shadows and cast shadows are a powerful element, in
making buildings look three-dimensional.
Generally, late afternoon is a good time to paint buildings, when
long shadows travel across the contours of walls and throw surface
features into sharp relief.
Favourite subjects
Among the favourite buildings painted by watercolour artists are
temples, cathedrals, villa, massive buildings, houses and churches.
These can look very attractive, but they are often let down by
over-burdened with details and all spontaneity is lost. Not only does
this look amateurish, it also leaves nothing to the viewer's
imagination.
Other popular subjects, of course, are cottages. Apart from the
emotional appeal of the subjects themselves they give the watercolour
artist the opportunity to use his skill to portray all the various
materials involved, such as thatch, tiles, timber, bricks and stone
against the surrounding textures of trees and shrubs.
Observe the building in my painting which looks more solid and real.
I never wanted to paint modern buildings in the city. They do not arouse
any feeling. I found old and weathered subjects like this building
fascinating, and render their textures more effectively.
The building is not so grand. It's a old store house in a far off
village. I have used the traditional techniques of glazing and heavy
pigments of burnt siennd, to convey the texture of the weather beaten
walls and the wooden shutters in the building. A touch of Yellow Ochore
with deep Olive green gives a pleasing granular appearance.
Paper texture
The kind of drawing paper you choose will play an important part in
the textures you create. For instance, dry brush texturing is especially
effective on rough paper, which catches at the paint and breaks it up.
On the smooth, non-absorbent surface of hot pressed paper, watercolour
has a tendency to puddle.
One thing I urge you to do with textures is to try them out on spare
pieces of paper first. This way if you're not sure how to tackle a
certain surface, and if you find a potential technique doesn't work, you
haven't ruined your precious painting. Remember, golfer practices
strokes before putting a club to the ball.
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