Demo - Imperial Palace, Tokyo

Here's a demo I did recently.

This is the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan (aka Kokyo), the residence of the Emperor of Japan, based on a photo I took while I was in Tokyo for a work-related business trip a year ago.

Full sheet of Fabriano Artistico Rough 300gsm stapled on stretching frame.

Let's start with the drawing...

First, a glaze of wash is done wet-on-wet on the background foliage with mixture of yellow ochre, sap green and turquoise blue. Next, the first wash of the rocks is painted ,also wet-on-wet with mixture of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, permanent rose, cerulean blue and turquoise blue. I also painted the gate with turquoise blue, prussian blue and yellow ochre. These will serve as the colour foundation of the overall painting.


Next, I moved on to the main building. The Imperial Palace is majestically built on top of a hill supported by the rocks and heavily guarded. The curved roof is especially fun to paint with minimal brush strokes to suggest the details. Then I painted the windows, roof tiles, beams, etc.

I also painted the shaded areas of the building and started to define the rocks with shades and cracks (this will be very tedious later on but fun to do nonetheless!) . I guess you can tell now that Yellow ochre and Turquoise blue are the colour theme of this painting.

Also, notice that I didn't use masking fluid to cover the lamp post and the guard houses. Instead, I chose to paint around these structures as I hate the very hard edges created by masking fluid. I only use it when really necessary.



I painted the rocks slowly and merticulously, very tedious task but someone still has to do it ... I didn't follow the forms and shapes of the rock exactly as in my ref photo (that would be insane), but a close interpretation would do, as long as they look like rocks.Also added more texture and layers to the background foliage but I kept it very light as I want to keep that area of the painting bright to contrast it with the rest of the painting.


Finally, I added more details and shades on the rock wall, painted the guard and lastly added more detailed branches and leaves on the background foliage.... happy that I've painted something for almost 2 months, but not really excited about it... may be because painting all those rocks in detail turned this into a tiring labour rather than a work of art? I don't know...

Anyway, here's the finished painting.


Here are some close-up shots:

Hope you like it... comments and critiques are welcome as usual.