Tag: Vieux Nice

Vieux Nice (opus 2)

I complemented Vieux Nice (opus 1) with a particular scene I had in mind.

Pencil sketch on a thick watercolor pad, having delimited the same size as the opus 1 painting:
Masking tape and pencil sketch on a large watercolor pad: street lamp and its shadow on the wall it is mounted on, clothesline and clothes, window blinds.

I mixed orange and crimson for the façade that I applied with a large synthetic brush, and wiped paint with less than more success where the lamp and some clothes needed to be white. I applied some yellow around the window:

For the window blinds I used a mix of turquoise and ultramarine:

While the light blue was drying, I worked with burnt sienna and black on the lamp, and then painted details on the blinds with ultramarine:

I used burnt sienna for the shadows, included that of the clothesline, and black for the clothes in the back and shadow of the window blinds. I added an extra layer of blue for shadows and contrast on the blinds and let that dry:

With more black I finished the shadows between the blinds, corrected the shape of the lamp and added details around it. Then I grabbed a white Posca pen and traced the clotheslines, added white to the top of the lamp, and marked the window sill. I then used white watercolor to paint the white clothes:

Having painted white the glass of the lamp, the painting was finished. Here is it, in a 40×30 cm frame, ready to be given to the same friend to whom I gave opus 1:

Vieux Nice (opus 1)

I spent a dozen hours or so, spread over three days, on a painting I did for a friend who loves city scenes that capture the ‘local taste’, the rhythms of balconies, and the way buildings in some Riviera towns cascade into each other.

I chose a view of the Old Nice, near the Cours Saleya, that featured colourful façades, a bell tower, tree tops and the iconic blue window blinds.

2B pencil sketch:
Pencil sketch on a large square watercolour sheet on a table in front of my iphone showing the reference photo

Then I did the outline using a 0.05 mm black Uni-ball Pin pen, and delimited the space with masking tape (glittery black was all I had –classy!):
Thin outline in black ink and tape at the top and bottom

Painting with shades of yellow, ochre, blue:
Watercolour nearly finished with the facades painted yellow and ochre, the window blinds painted blue, the bell tower painted with rainbow colours

Once the red and green are in, this is done. Here is the resulting 30×20 cm watercolor:
Finished watercolour, tape removed, signature and date added in white at the bottom right

Framed and ready to ship! (30×40 cm)
Finished watercolour framed in white wood