The Shard nearly finished, April 2012

I was very struck by the photos I’d seen of its construction recently and couldn’t resist depicting it just as it’s almost completed. Who would be the crane driver up there? I’m not even good up stepladders, it makes me ill to think of it. But the sight of the crane is so dramatic and the image fills me with wonder and questions. Once it’s finished how do they then get the crane down again? At the moment it looks as though it’s nailed to the side of the skyscraper.

Fortunately I had other things to worry about, like how to paint it? Well, it’s watercolour on smooth Arches watercolour paper, which produces that very silky look to the clouds at the bottom. If you look at the close-up image below you will see that I started by drawing the crane in with a fine masking fluid dispenser in a freehand sort of way, and then washed in the sky and building colour over the top. When all was dry I rubbed off the masking fluid to leave the crane white on the page.

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I was in London a week or two ago, seeking inspiration for painting. It must have been the only day for weeks that was NOT sunny! But still there is something about drawing directly from life in cities that I love to do.

These are three of the sketches I came up with, along the river by the City. Straight in with a pen, and add a minimum of colour wash if I have time. I’m hoping to do some paintings from these drawings, but the most fun is always the drawing itself on the spot, even if they do turn out a bit clumsy and squiffy in places.

The challenge is to keep the freshness of the sketches in the final painting. I tend to tidy things up too much when I try to paint ‘properly’. Perhaps I should try painting left handed.

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