A little bit more of Victoria Street

I'm determined to keep at the Edinburgh pictures, even although I'm finding the subject matter less to my liking than Lochcarron.  Anyway, I had done a few thumbnails last night in preparation for the studio today.

Victoria Street thumbnail copyright Aileen Grant

I thought this composition had some merit, so I thought I would have a go at it.  (Actually, looking at it again, I like the way the buildings disappear into soft focus at the top of the page.)  Here's the sequence of pictures.

 

Series of Emerging pictures of Victoria Street copyright Aileen Grant

 I don't appear to have taken a very good photo, but it gives the general idea.  I'm afraid I don't find pictures of buildings all that exciting, and because of that I'm not a good judge of the end result.  I like the thumbnail better than the finished picture so perhaps it needs more work - I need to darken down some of the shopfronts, providing a better focal point.  But the finished pic was not too far away from the thumbnail.

I did another picture today which I think I'm a little bit happier with.  Here is the sequence.

Series of emerging pictures Victoria Street with Highland Free Kirk Steeple copyright Aileen Grant

The colour of this is much more interesting (perhaps a bit Turner-esque? not by design, I must say). It may point to a good approach to depicting the buildings of Edinburgh.  I started with underpainting of gouache - magenta and indian yellow - then drew into it and added some pale acrylic.  At that point I didn't want to lose all the pure colour, so I put some masking tape over, and carried on with ink, gouache and acrylic.  Oh, and graphite and charcoal.  So it was a right mixture.  But the building has ended up looking quite vibrant.  It has a warmth which makes it interesting, I think - at least it appeals to me more than the watered down colours I did on Friday.  And the steeple is nice and black, emerging out of the gloom of the sky.  The only thing I'm not sure about is the composition.....the building is a little low in the page, but then this accentuates the narrowness of the street and the importance of looking up....as always...difficult to get everything right.