Week 24

 Landscape hunting

I chose to go for the more gothic side of medieval architecture, there is a church in my local area from the mid 1500s which I chose to use as my subject

Sketching 

  Based on images from images that I had of the building and others from the internet I created thumbnail sketches to decide which one I liked best, each had their own charm but I chose the one highlighted since it had a nice balance of levels within the scene . I couldn't decide whether I wanted to do the piece in colour or in black materials, so to test I did very rough tests to decide which one I preferred. I found the tonal piece looked much more gothic and grimm than I wanted it to be so I decided that I'd do the piece in colour using a mix of watercolour and pencils .

Final piece

The final piece for this week is a fairytale like which I personally really like because it contrasts the personal association I have with churches like this which is this image of death and rules, whereas as here it feels new and light. I think my main improvement I would suggest for this piece is to refine details and have clearer lines and edges as I think it is missing an element of structure, for example the top of the main building has some small details that on the right are fairly well done but on the left are abstract and unclear, I could have gone in with pencil to fix this in hindsight which I must keep in mind for next time. Another thing Id fix is the larger shadow on the right side of the building, I struggled finding the right hue to use and I think building it up gradually to get the tone right would have been a better approach since it isn't working well here, it would also give more of a chance to build in more detail as the shadow is developed so the area looks less bland. One thing I think went well was the painting of the moss as I struggled at first to figure out how to apply it without making it look like climbing plants as moss looks a bit like chalk paint on a building at a distance. So I found taking a small amount on a dry brush and dabbing it on top of the base colours created this effect well, I also try to replicate the face the bricks effect breaks and shape of moss on the building which you can see most on the area closest to the viewer. Overall I am happy with the outcome but I think I need to practice more with refining my use of shadow all around in colour since I can find it challenging and it is seen here through both the refining and large shadow hue issues mentioned earlier.

Revision 1: