Last Sunday, I had the great pleasure of spending the day with Liliane Marchois and her group of French watercolour painters and sketchbook users (or carnet de voyage, I believe is the preferred French term) at Stockholm´s outdoor museum Skansen. We had a great day, with only a tad rain (though a bit windy – you could feel autumn is coming along), and some great views to sketch.
Merci, tout le groupe (toute la groupe? je vous l´ai dit – j´ai oublié toute la grammaire Francaise…), pour m´inviter pour une journée très agréable et pleine d´inspiration!
During the dinner in the evening, I got a little challenge from Liliane, to make a sketch using only two complementary colours. I was going to take on the challenge the very next day, but work and other stuff prevented me, and I didn´t get it done until today. I would have loved to do a wider view in this street, but the wind was too cold, so I had to limit my sketching time a little, and finished the colouring at home.
It is interesting to work with only two complementaries. In a way, it is easier than using the whole palette, because you don´t have to make so many choices. But it is also tricky to ignore the actual local colours of things, and try to concentrate on value alone. A good exercise, for sure.
(I had a bit of a problem with scanning this image – the scanner simply didn´t accept Schmincke´s Chrome Orange, it came out almost red. I had to use all of my Photoshop tuning skills to get a rough resemblance to the actual sketch here… Sometimes digital equipment just doesn´t get it, does it?)
Top image: 27 x 21 cm, bottom image: 13,5 x 21 cm, TWSBI Diamond 580 with Platinum Carbon ink and watercolours, in Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook.