Watercolour and Ink of Colmar, France.

The first stage of any painting is to decide where and how I shall place it on the page. I knew from the beginning I was going to paint right to the tape edges and so I drew the rectangle I was going to work within. Then it was a case of drawing the image to scale and  in as much detail as I wanted.

Stage two is inking up the image. I use Staedler pigment liner in various thicknesses. I usually work with a 0.3 to start going down to a 0.05. Choosing the right size of liner depends on the scale of your image and how much detail you want to add, also where you want the focal point to be. I start with the larger size liners for the outside walls and roofs of the houses etc, then for the windows maybe slightly finer, then by the time you are lining the door handles you are using the finest nib.

The last part is the actual painting. Before I started I edged the drawing with masking tape to stop the paint bleeding. Watercolour can be worked with in various ways and I tend to do a lot of dry painting. I work on small areas with the colour directly instead of wetting the paper then adding the paint. I still layer over and over to get the final effect, and use wet watercolour techniques for the sky etc. The last bit to do is the most fun, and that’s removing the masking tape to reveal the beautiful straight line around the finished piece of work.

If you haven’t been to Colmar in France I can highly recommend it, it’s beautiful.