Tutorial N°18 : Page from a diary travel, a merchant in India.

Arche paper 300g / m2, grain cloth.

Colors: gum-drop, orange, cadmium red, golden rose, carmine, natural Sienna, burnt Sienna, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, sepia and Davy gray or black.

Brushes: Dalbe 200, pure marten, n ° 8, Winsor and Newton series 7, n ° 2.

1. Picture of the merchant.

2. Drawing of the merchant.

3. First wash. After passing a wash of the gum-drop and orange mixture on the sari, pass a natural Siena juice on the basket.

4.Place a bit of golden rose on the camisole.

5. Paint the arms with a very dilute mixture of burnt umber and carmine, leaving the whites in the parts in the light.

6. Paint the face with the same mixture (burnt umber and carmine).

7. Reinforce the sari with orange in which we put a touch of cadmium red.

8. Reinforce on the right with orange highly concentrated in pigment.

9. Mark the shadow on the face with burnt umber on the forehead and neck. Add shade and details to the camisole, especially the folds with very concentrated golden pink.

10. Start painting the dishes by applying a burnt Sienna wash on the right.

11. Paint the hair with sepia.

12. Reinforce the basket with burnt Sienna, leave areas of white and apparent yellow.

13. Paint the dishes with Davy gray or very diluted black, leave the whites in reserve to mark the lights.

14. Reinforce the shadows of the arms with the burnt umber, draw the bracelets and further define the fingers. Mark the shade of the veil on the neck and chest.

15. Darken the dishes with the denser Davy gray, more loaded with pigment to intensify the volumes and bring out the light. Take the finer Winsor and Newton brush to paint a few details at the top of the basket with burnt umber.

16. Continue to highlight the shadows in the basket with small touches of burnt umber.

17. Start painting the background, the elements will be less defined, we use natural Sienna wash, a mixture of Davy gray and very diluted Sienna. We sketch the young boy on the right with the same colors as the merchant.

18. Continue the funds. On the right with the burnt sienna, in which we add in the cool burnt umber mixed with sepia.

19. Sketch using a few sepia lines the bike on the left, continue to paint the upper part with the same wash. Specify the shade of the basket with a little burnt umber.

20. Paint the child more precisely, the colors used are the same as for the woman, the teeshirt is painted with ultramarine blue mark the electrical lines, the cords to hold the awning with the tip of the brush, very loosely without too much to mark.

21. Reinforce the boy's teeshirt with Davy gray and ultramarine blue stripes, accentuate the eyebrows, eyes and hair with black. Mark the red bindi that Indian women wear on the forehead.

Watercolor painting, thanks to its fluidity and speed of execution, is perfectly suited to the art of the travel diary. With this tutorial, I suggest you restore the essentials of a street scene without getting lost in the details from a photo taken in India. This watercolor will be done in two sessions.