After some of the kind advice and suggestions I received last week – for which I’m most grateful – I came very close to not painting or posting anything at all this week.
In the end, however, I just couldn’t help myself!
I’d had something sketched out on a board for a week or so and, faced with the options of not painting or posting anything, or doing a quick painting and a quick post – well, here I am.
The view is one that I found on Pinterest some time ago when on my train station phase. The reference image is black and white and I really liked some of the strong contrasts and the the main compositional elements, especially the sweeping vertical arcs created by the station architecture and it’s reflection on the wet platform.
This was painted in one sitting and done really quickly, probably around 20 or 30 minutes in total, with a only a few colours and a couple of brushes. I also resisted as best I could every temptation to ‘fiddle’ with this. While it doesn’t warrant any close scrutiny, from across the room, I was quite pleased with how it reads.
I know it won’t be to everyone’s liking, but as a reminder of the speed and immediacy of watercolour, it did wonders for my spirit. I hope it’s not railway overkill to suggest that painting this felt like a glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel!
Here are few of my other train station paintings and posts from this year, (all of which took me quite a bit longer to paint that this one!):
11 thoughts on “A glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel”
Excellent paintings John. I love the first one – you’ve done a great job capturing the essence of the scene in just 20 minutes or so… !
Thanks so much Evelyn. It could just be my frame of mind at the moment but the thought of spending hours on a painting slightly terrifies me!
These are all wonderful, John. I especially love the one with the old locomotive, and the other with the large skylights. They are all great, but those two just connected with me emotionally. I think it was not so much the painting per se as it was the exact subject matter. I just love locomotives. And in the one with the huge skylights, I think it is that warm sunshine with the people. Maybe I am just feeling that scene as a pre-COVID moment, like a time gone by.
But in all of them you have done a superb job of conveying the feeling of the subjects. Thank you for brightening my day.
Great painting again John, the figures are especially pleasing.
Thanks so much Ray – felt nice to paint without any particular sense of preciousness. Be nice to get a few more similarly carefree ones under my belt!
These are really good! I cannot seem to do buildings or fine lines such as you have accomplished here. If you could perhaps post a demo . . . ? Landscapes are so much more forgiving!
Haha, yes, I know what you mean about landscapes being more forgiving! I’m not sure about posting a demo – I’ve never done one before so although it would be a good challenge for me, it might also be a bit of a leap!
Doing a demo is a bit of a leap, especially if you video it. What about hints about how you do your fine lines? That is what I really noticed in your painting. I expect some are in white gouache, but the arches and such were so well done . . . love your paintings and enjoy your blog.
Thanks so much for this – I really appreciate your kind and supportive comments. I do use white for some small highlights but instead of gouache I’ve be using titanium white watercolour. Some of the big curves on the right hand side in this painting were scraped out by using the corner of a credit card while the paint was still wet which is another technique that’s worth a try!
That’s what I was looking for!! Thank you. 😉
My pleasure, hope it works out for you!