I’m weaning myself from small (~3″x4″) pen and ink studies for now and trying to get back to watercoloring on a larger scale. The photograph below lends itself to both watercolor and pen and ink. Its composition contains straight lines and rectangles, but also displays a wonderful harmony of colors.

Perhaps the photo was not color corrected when it was printed, but I like its yellow cast. It holds some mystery for me.

I began my color study by blocking the dark shapes (the windows, doors and vertical wall structures) with Van Dyke brown. I used pen and ink to sketch in shadows and some brick patterns.  Earth colors seemed like the way to go for the reddish bricks, and I used Titanium Buff for the wall containing the windows. I left the white graffitied wall untouched at this point, except I inked-in some bricks.

My final touch was a wash of lemon yellow, to add some sun-drenchedness.

The photograph seems much more mysterious to me. Perhaps with more work on larger formats I can capture an mood I wish to portray.