Grand Hotel step by step.

                                              Step by step Grand Hotel painting.   

This was a project I recently did, painting Hartlepool landmarks starting with The Grand Hotel owned by Great Western, it is  over 100 years old and supposed to be quite haunted!

The first  step was to actually photograph the place and as it is located on a very busy road opposite a shopping centre you always had people waiting at the bus stop by the building and of course lots of traffic so I went down early one sunday morning to take a few snaps with a clear road, a three shot panoramic and stitched together in photoshop then cropped to the correct size for the painting which was 16x12 inches.

1.  Once  I had the reference photo I had to actually sketch the building, I usually paint this type of static building very detailed  meaning every window and other details had to be drawn in carefully to ensure a firm frame for the painting. 

2. Once the drawing was complete I used masking fluid to mask off  various features such as the white window frames, railings etc.

3.Starting the painting I applied thin washes over the entire paper and dropping various colours in wet in wet for the sky and trees. Other parts of the picture only had one wash, this allows the artist to quickly assess some colour and tonal values.

4. Next I applied more substantial washes over the painting strengthening the colours and working wet in wet on the trees.

5. Strengthening the colour and tones again I started to add details such as brickwork and roof tiles plus I added  washed for the actual shadow areas on the left hand side of the building. This stage of the procedure can last quite a while depending  on the amount of detail you want in the picture. I also faded the bottom left corner of the painting  as a  type of soft vignette. 

6. The finished painting. It is quite difficult to try and get an accurate representation when you photograph a watercolour, it NEVER looks as good as when you see it in the flesh so to speak! 
Mounted and framed the size is 20x16 inches.
Total  time to complete, 12 hours.