After my last rather poor watercolor attempt, I thought I’d try something a little different this time. First, I chose an easier subject – a one point perspective of an unadorned facade that I photographed on a trip to Spain last year. The building lies at the feet of the Cathedral of Girona, a.k.a. the Cathedral of Saint Mary of Girona, a.k.a. the Great Sept of Baelor, for all you Game of Thrones nerds. The facade is simple but lovely, broken by a line of balustrades that form the stairs up to the Cathedral that rises over the buildings in the square below. The shot is quite monochromatic, save for pops of color from the azure trim around the doors and the terracotta potted plants lined up on the balconies.
After settling on a suitable subject, I decided to play with different mediums and a smaller paper size by halving a sheet from my 9 x 12 pad. Sketch number one is done in pencil and finished with pastels and colored pencils. Not having my own set of pencils, I raided my boyfriend’s five-year old’s stash of Crayolas. Now, I know they say nothing beats quality, but that box of dull, dog-chewed pencils seemed to do the trick just fine. What gave me more of a problem was my set of pricey Derwent pastel pencils, which I had some trouble getting to smudge and blend the way I wanted. I’m not sure if it had more to do with the toothy watercolor paper I was using (possibly) or my complete lack of training/practice with pastels (definitely). In either case, the result is soft and muted and a bit bland. Still, I thought I was more or less happy with it, until I compared it to the watercolor I did next.
I was back to familiar ground with sketch number two – pencil outline plus pen sketch plus watercolor paint. As there is not much going on in the image in the way of color or shapes, I instead had fun trying to show texture through varying strokes, dabs, dots, rubs, and other misuses of my expensive sable round brush (I seem to hold a misguided belief that quality materials by themselves will make up for deficiencies in training and talent). Comparing the finished watercolor to the pencil version, it seems much more lively, with a greater sense of depth and detail. Granted, it was my second time sketching the facade so I already had a sense of how it would go and where to not make the same mistakes.
On both attempts, I found the balustrades challenging to draw and had trouble mixing a shade of blue to exactly match the reference photo. Overall though, I had a lot of fun with this one. I have found that I usually enjoy drawing doors and windows – also true in this case – but I also weirdly got a kick out of drawing the balconies and angling the railings just so. This exercise made me realize as well how much I like working with watercolors, at least compared to pencils. That said, it would be interesting to continue experimenting with pastels, perhaps trying out different types of pencils and paper to see if a different combination of materials lends a better result. In the meantime, I think I’d like to frame these two side-by-side with the original photo in the center. Just need to find the frames and the wall space to make it happen.