True Colours

 Back at my mooring buoy in Poros, Greece I have spent days working on a new watercolour. 

I wanted to do something different this time and walked around the shoreline looking for subject matter. Just as I was about to give up I stumbled upon this scene. A guy in a camper van had hung out his washing between the trees at the waters edge. In the background was an old boat moored to a tiny jetty. The wind played with the washing giving it life and the sun enhanced the bright colours of the clothes and foliage.

I made a sketch and decided to mask all the washing in order to work freely with the background. The sketch was in fact quite detailed as I didn’t want to forget anything. This was done en plein air (on location) but I took photographs to continue with it back at my boat. It turned out I used the wrong masking fluid ( it was written in Russian) So I ripped the whole sketch up in anger and started right from the beginning!

The sketch with masked and taped
 the outlines of the washing

The first colours of the foliage were added

ultramarine and cobalt blue were used for the sea
and shadows between the leaves give the scene some depth

I added burnt sienna to the tree trunk and foreground

Now it was time to remove the mask

As a base colour for the boat and
some of the washing I used magenta red

Finally the last details of the washing were painted  and the grass in the foreground was added.