Painting Singapore's Skyscrapers

Before I flood this blog with yet another posting of my son, I'd better post something related to my watercolours.

So, let me do a quick demo of how I paint Singapore's Central Business District, which was painted over 3 weeknights and 1 weekend.

(1) The Drawing

I usually do a quick sketch for most of my painting but for this scene, I had to be more precise and accurate since it involves modern tall buildings, all lines have to be straight unlike old houses where it doesn't matter if it's a bit crooked, which actually add more interests and characters to the overall painting.



(2) Painting The Sky

As usual, I started with the sky by wetting the paper with water first. Then, I painted it with a mixture of Cerulean Blue and Cobalt Blue. I threw a bit of Ultramarine Violet mixed with a liitle burnt sienna to make a greyish shade for the clouds.



(3) Painting The Building - Establish the First Layer

After the sky is completly dried, I started putting in the very first glaze of colours on the buildings. You can see that both wet on dry, and wet on wet techniques are being used here. Remember, the buildings may be mostly grey but it's important to vary the colours, there are shades of blues, pinks, violets in those greys.



(4) Painting The Buildings - the Details

Next, I started to establish the shaded areas by painting another darker glaze of the same colour, and then began to build up the details like windows, columns and pillars. But this distance, a window consists of just a tiny little dot and I tend to indicate a row of windows by painting a straight line. Patience is the key to a good cityscape painting like this.



(5) Finishing The Buildings

I applied the same concept to the rest of the buildings, painted all the details while at the same time always remember where the sunlight is coming from. All the buildings are done at this stage.




(6) Water and Boats

Last but not least, I painted the waters and boats. Making use of the white paper to indicate the ripples and waves caused by the moving boats, which serve two purposes here. (1) To create movement and interest to an otherwise very static and rigid composition, and (2) To direct viewer's eye to the center of the painting where the tallest bulidings are situated.
Here's the finished painting.



Here are some close-up shots of the painting.




Hope you like this little demo that I've put together. Comments and critiques welcome as usual.