A little background about this painting.

I photographed this small town called Aerdt situated in the south of the Dutch province Gelderland, sketched the scene en plein air and painted under the canopy of our caravan.

A bit of my workflow.

I planned my wash sequences and colors. I wanted to keep the red roofs bright to make them stand out and bring in some brightness.

I started out with the sky bringing it down to the rooftops, then painted the rooftops and when dried brought in the background trees remembering to “define the edge just once with the application of the darkest tone” carefully cutting around the dormers and chimneys. To keep some visual interest I decided to keep one roof grey to prevent monotony. It also matches with the church roofs. For the foreground I started out light and gradually brought in the darker burnt sienna tone in and letting it flow from the bottom while turning the paper upside down.

Gradually I painted the green in the field keeping a light yellowish band. Then there is at some point the question to fence or not to fence which I did. The grasses in the foreground were painted in and topped with titanium white.

I added the original photograph.

Kind regards everyone,

Ron