Introduction to Coloring Part 2

Watercoloring Your Building Drawing

Grab one of the building drawing you have done, scan it and print it out. If you have access to a copy machine you can make a copy from your tracing paper as well. Place the copy on a section of newspaper. Load up some blue onto your #12 round brush and apply it a section of the sky area above your building. I know you have heard me a zillion times say that neatness does not count, but I still mean it. You don't always have to color in between the lines as you were taught as a kid. You don't have to color the whole sky either, as a matter of fact if you paint a little on one side and a little on the other as in the example you create the illusion of clouds. You will notice that the paint does not cover over the lines of the drawing. This is the beauty of working with transparent color. Remember you have more copies if you're not happy with the first attempt.

Use the #2 round brush and add some blue to the windows to give the illusion of sky reflecting in the glass.

When changing colors, dip your brush and swirl it around in the cup of water. The color washes out pretty fast.

While the sky is drying place a dab of Paynes Gray on your palette.

Load up some color and apply to the paving area in the foreground (if your subject has a grass area in the front use Hookers Green Light).

Place a dab of Hookers Green Light and one of Hookers Green Dark on your palette. Load up your #12 brush with the light green and apply it to the trees and bushes on your drawing. Let it dry and add some dark green to shadow areas on the trees. By adding a little of the Payne's Gray to the dark green it will give you a slightly darker color to create more contrast from the light green. You don't have to fill in all areas with color; it's good to leave some blank spots.

Indigo Blue is good to use over the hatched building shadow areas--it adds contrast.

At this stage the drawing will look great even if we stopped here. The sky and green trees make the building stand out.

The awning on my subject building is red so I added some color. If your subject has a roof, experiment with some of the earth colors to add color. These colors can be used for tree trunks also. I'll have a future lesson on coloring the building itself. Take some yellow to color flowers or some of the bushes; lastly, splash a little diluted Ultramarine Blue on the building to indicate shadows being cast from the clouds and trees.

When complete your color drawing will have a soft color feel. We brought it to life without spending too much time on it.

As usual great job!

Stay tuned for more advanced lessons in the near future.

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Produced by Jim Stilwell, all artwork copyrighted 2020

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