Beside The Castle

Watercolor Painting by Dennis Pendleton. Another page in my sketchbook from the workshop in France. This is right next to the castle and I was delighted the little yellow flowers were in bloom because they made the lawn much more interesting. I knew this would make an interesting subject and I walked around looking at it from different angles and finally decided on this view point.

The trees around the castle were fascinating and really fun to paint. It took some time to figure out the different greens and color temperature played a big role. In the very back on the left the tall trees were painted with perylene green and the two trees in front of them are mixtures of cerulean blue and lemon yellow. The tall Cyprus tree in front of the wall is olive green with French ultramarine blue added for the shaded side. In front of the building, the distorted tree was painted with gray and Van Dyke brown. For the tree behind the building I used olive green and perylene green. Finally, to the right of the building, the darker tree is perylene green and the lighter one is olive mixed with cerulean blue.

I really liked the way the wall moved diagonally through the composition and I painted it gray mixed with cerulean blue and brilliant orange. For the cast shadow from the Cyprus tree I added a little mineral violet to the mixture. The lawn started with a mixture of olive green and lemon yellow and as it came forward I used cadmium yellow instead of the lemon. Lemon yellow is very opaque, especially if you use very little water and I was able to drop the yellow flowers on top of the green lawn. For the texture on the stone building I spattered yellow ochre and burnt sienna and then tapped it with a tissue before it was dry. The addition on the right was painted with yellow ochre and cobalt violet. I wanted the doorway and the round window on the stone building to command more attention so I added a bit of orange. Actually there was a little color there so I pushed it a little further. Deciding how much lawn to include was important because I wanted to give the impression of walking up to the wall and looking over at the building and trees. It is a lot of foreground but I think it works. Happy Painting! Dennis Pendleton