Chopin’s birth house – from sketch to watercolor painting

One weekend we decided to find some interesting place to sketch. This time outside Warsaw. We have  chosen the place of Frederic Chopin’s birth – a small town Zelazowa Wola.First we took some photos trying to catch the magic moment and finally we sat in front of the house while some Japanese pianist played solo for the people.Two sketches took me about 90 minutes.
The second one I painted yesterday with watercolors. It had  a bit too much pencil shading, but I wanted to see it in color.

What was my plan this time?
– use more clean colors, mix less
– find the right colors for front and rear layers to enable the air perspective, although the scene is pretty tight
– make it look close to real but vivid
– practice painting trees
– do not copy a photo, but emphasize some interesting areas

I haven’t use a masking fluid and I splattered some light blue over the whole surface to change a bit the color temperature.
Few words about the final painting. I followed my rules and I am pretty happy with the result. It was another lesson which showed me things I should change or improve…

First, I need to use larger size sketchbook or to sketch straight in the block of paper. A5 is OK for some quick sketches, but later it’s a real pain to work with the details. Also the small size makes details seem overloaded and image is just SMALL.

Next thing, the paper is to thin in my sketchbook, thus painting “wet on wet” doesn’t really work. I couldn’t get the look I needed, because I had to control the amount of water to stop the paper from buckling. It had an influence while painting the rear layers.

Everything else went OK. Just need more practice with the trees and their colors.

Below is the photo I took on place and used it as a color reference. Original one from the place I was drawing is not shown, because I had it on another computer while painting and I needed only the overall view.

I decided to paint straight in the sketchbook, without making a copy sketch this time to focus on error-free workflow. No UNDO and no return.

I have been finishing the sketch while people listening to the concert started to disappeared;)

Well.. how do you like my work then?
I am going to frame the original painting and take a high quality photo of it. Copies will be available to buy somewhere on internet.

Thanks for reading!

Chopin’s birth house

Chopin’s house – reference for colors – high quality stock image available for sale

Chopin’s house sketch

This sketch of Chopin’s house took about 60 minutes en plain air

Zelazowa Wola Park

Here I am while sketching in Zelazowa Park, while listening to Chopin live!:)

People listening to live Chopin’s music

I can only recommend to visit this beautiful place. Amazing garden, great atmosphere and live Chopin’s music playing. Although on weekends there are a bit too many people and inside of the building there is almost nothing to see ;)