Drawings - Stourhead Out Building

Here is the drawing on tracing paper that I wrote about the other day.  I decided to try the photo by putting white board behind the tracing paper.  It worked - sort of.  See for yourself:

It's hard to see everything, but the building itself shows up well.  All the squiggly lines you see behind the building as well as on the building indicate trees, bushes, green growing things.

This is one of three drawings that I plan to paint in watercolors, but none of them are traced onto watercolor paper.  In today's class, I told Sharon that I didn't want to spend class time on something I could do at home.  Instead of that I wanted to do a value study of this subject while she could catch me if I headed off into trouble.  She not only agreed with me, she also encouraged me to do several watercolor wash studies also.  Developing muscle memory will help be become more fluid (pun intended) with my brush work.  Since I did learn that a value study really helped with the mis-named "Painswick Gardens" (February 8, 2015 "List Lost? Forge Ahead"), I am finally willing to spend the time on studies.

Here is the value study.  It isn't finished, but it is well on its way.  Again the trees above, behind, and in front received the most attention.  I find that it is relatively easy to figure out where the shadows are on things with definite shapes - like buildings - but trees?  Well, you have to look carefully to see the masses of light and dark.  Having a sense of what's going on makes putting brush to paper a heck of a lot easier.

Or, at least, that's what I hope!