Materials used:
Brushes
1 1/2" (381mm) Flat Winsor & Newton Series 965
1" Grumbacher Aquarelle Flat Red Sable
#12 Winsor & Newton Series 7 Red Sable
#10 Winsor & Newton Series 820 Red Sable
#6 Grumbacher Watercolor Classic Red Sable
Paints
Sap Green, Hooker's Green Dark, Pthalocyanine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Dioxazine Purple, Alizarin Crimson, Permanent Rose, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber
Paper
Watercolor Block (12" x 16") Arches #140 cold pressed
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Miscellaneous
#2 Pencil
Kneaded Eraser
Palette - Your choice. Mine is an old Robert E. Wood model.
Water container (2) and water
Hair dryer (optional)
Reference
Photo or Sketch big enough for you to see reasonably well.
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Step One: Preliminary Drawing
Take time and sketch your prelimiary drawing, architectural subjects demand a certain amount of understanding how the geometric shapes interconnect to make the whole pattern.
Pictured here is the original photo, a rather gray-day shot, and the intial sketch. More time was spent on the shape of the building and the loose arrangement of all the foliage.
My plan of attack was to simulate a late-evening light raking across the whole tableau coming in from the upper right.
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Step Two: First Washes
The original building is stark white but I wanted to warm up the tone for the new lighting.
To set the stage, I used a wash of raw sienna and pulled a wash gradation with a mix of cobalt blue and burnt umber for the area closer to the ground.
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Step Three: Shadow attack!
I moistened the top of the roof and while the raw sienna wash was still damp I added some shadows from the trees to right. When the house wash was dry enough I added the shadow wash on the left of the house using cobalt blue grayed slightly with a bit of burnt umber.
Trying to keep in mind the shapes of the woods and trees around the house, and the lighting direction, I laid down the basic shape and direction of the shadows in the foreground and midground using a mix of cobalt blue and a bit of dioxazine purple on the left shadow areas across the path.
Then I noticed the chimney, so I blocked that in with the same blue I used on the side of the house.
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Step Four: Whoa! Whats all this?
I moistened the entire sky area with a 1 1/2" wash brush and flicked in a few clouds in the sky using pure cerulean blue and a #12 round, a great color for classic KODACHROME skies.
While the sky was still wet I mixed up some sap green and some cadmium yellow light (lemon) and started blocking in all the green areas and shapes, allowing it to fuzz off in the distance a bit.
I used a raw sienna wash in the exposed earth areas of the pathways. Over top of this, when dry, I dragged a 1/2" flat brush on it's side to get the texture in the path.
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Step Five: Next?
I dried the painting with my blow dryer and, using more of a dry-brush approach, I started drawing in the forms of the bushes and trees with a 1" flat sable. I used sap green and hooker's green dark for the most part. I took care in the way the shapes of the tree foliage lay over the sky areas.
Using various green values and shades from the puddles laying around, I used a #6 round sable and indicated some grass here and there.
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Painting the Frostville Barnhouse - Part 1
Step-by-Step Watercolor Paintings