Street Scene: The rest of the story

 FINISHING THE CITY SCENE

After doing the windows, it was time to make a wash over the buildings. So I did a wash over the buildings, OPPOSITE of the background. You can see the tops are warm (using quin gold or raw sienna), adding magenta, then cooling off with blue at the bottom. You can also see a bit of tentative greens where there might be window planters.

I painted the blues on the roofs using French ultramarine grayed down a bit with burnt sienna. 

I decided the sky was too gray after it dried, and washed over it lightly with some cerulean, then adding the red above the center building.

Here I started filling in more details in the windows. I used a base of cobalt teal blue for the shutters, not really sure if I liked that color with the color scheme I have going. But it's a common color in Europe, so I went forward with it. I darkened the window sills, making shadows around the windows. 

I wanted more of a feeling of depth, and felt I needed to darken the sides of the walls. But I also wanted to stay with my efford to keep it warm to cool on the buildings, and at the same time add a little bit of texture. I used a wash of lunar red rock on the top and lunar blue on the bottom to make it gradually darker on the sides. (Starting on the far edge of each side, and stopping around the middle of each building.) This pushed the light to the center of the picture. I used burnt umber and purple for the shadows on the ground, leaving some light around the walking figure.

I got to practice with my new needle nose brush from Cheap Joe's, a birthday present from Glenn. I used it for some of the fine details on the window bars and the sculpture. I strengthened some of the shadows in the windows. I still tried to keep the windows cool on the top and warm on the bottoms, using French ultramarine and purple for the cools; quin burnt orange and burnt umber for the warms. 

I taped off some squares and cobblestones on the ground and lifted them with a brush. After removing the tape, I put a few shadows under the cobblestones and spattered the ground.

The last thing I did was add my figure. 

I also wanted more emphasis at the top, so I lifted a little on the top middle building and strengthened the contrast between roof and building by darkening close to where they meet using lunar blue.

So this was not so much a tutorial, but walking through a thought process. I am convinced that had I done a value study first, it would have been better. What do you think? If I had any personal connection to the place, I would consider trying again, maybe with another technique.