Where I start

I've been thinking a lot about my process since that silly statement of mine a few weeks ago. So the final painting may well feel like it's coming from pure instinct, but actually, it's muscle memory and lots of work spent working on composition, values, colours and drawing.

I have this photo I took while on holidays in France last September. When the sun was shining, I became obsessed with observing the light bouncing across the streets. Let's face it, we're not getting much light in Ireland in January. And even in the summer, we rarely get sunshine intense enough to create strong shadows and reflections.

My main struggle is always to figure out what it is that I want to paint - is it the contrast between the sunny side and the shady side, the white car against the white house, the beautiful wooden shutters, the shadow under the shutters - it looks like an upside-down sail, or is it just the light? If you ask me, I would say it's all about the light. But how do I paint that? 

When I looked at my grid lines, I felt I needed more of the buildings on the left and right and some of the sky, so I went back to the original full-sized photo. PS: I've only just recently started using Procreate to figure out composition and how I want to lead the eye around the picture. And when I look at it now, it's all pointing to the car. Cars are hard to draw and paint. But a white car against a white building, even in the shade, how am I going to do that?

There's no way around it, so I move onto thumbnails, drawing so I understand shapes, values and get to know what I'm looking at. This is where I look at all my questions, and try to answer some! But even after all this, I can't decide if I'm more interested in the car or the inverted sailboat shadows under the shutters!

Next, colour thumbnails. They normally make me happy, but on this occasion, they're just showing me how much I still need to figure out!

Then, I need to practise the weak points, the shutters, the electric cables, the car, all along getting to know what I want to paint better. At this stage, it could go either way. I might go to quarter sheet direct watercolour, or I might decide that I've bitten more than I can chew and move on to something else! No matter what, I'm learning along the way, so it's all good!

Cars are so frustrating!

But then, if I add a silhouette beside the car, that might help, except I have to be super-careful about scale! And see, I have come back to the cropped view, mostly in the shade.