Painting process | London Evening, Winter Shadows

10 Nov

Is it a bit odd to have a favourite red phone box in London? Well... I do! This one down by the Thames in Pimlico, framed so beautifully by the trees and Battersea Power Station in the background, always makes me smile.

I've been meaning to paint it for a while now, and in fact this painting is based on a photo I took one winter many years ago. I knew I wanted to paint it, but didn't have the skills yet to execute it. So it stayed in my arsenal until now, and I'm so happy I was patient.

Preliminary sketches and studies

To make the phone box the focal point, I chose to cut the composition into a portrait orientation. It’s framed by the trees and shadows, drawing the viewer’s eye in.
I started with this sketch to work out where the darks and lights fell in the scene. This is important to make the lighting and shadows feel real.

These little paint sketches helped me to explore the colour. The blues in the first painting are warmer, which I corrected in the second for the wintery light.

This was the last sketch I did. The colours are very muted, and the footpath too cool. But, I got the value relationship between the phone box, wall and power station right.
I didn’t properly utilise these sketches to make a plan for painting the tree branches, which gave me more work later on!

The painting process

I started with a rusty red underpainting. This choice was based on instinct, and actually in hindsight I think a cooler base would have worked better. This red made it hard to judge my warm colours and it took a bit to correct the path’s colour later on - but it all worked out in the end.
I started with a sketch of the big shapes.

This is the first layer completed. I roughed in the darks in the trees to allow me to come back later and break it up. I painted the power station in blocks of colour, which gives it form without much distracting detail.

Here, I repositioned and adjusted the proportions of the phone box. I also worked on perfecting the light effect by adding golden highlights in the trees, refining the purples and greens in the shadows, and adding glints of light on the bike racks and lamp post.

Here, I finally built up the courage to tackle the mass of branches in the top of the painting.
I wanted to capture an impression of the trees. In real life we don’t see each individual branch and twig like a photo does. So, I was painting how low winter light looks as it filters through the trees, rather than painting the trees themselves.

Next I worked on the path. I warmed up the colours, added gaps between the pavers, and made the shadows cohesive. Together, this worked to make the low winter light more believable in the painting.
I also softened the edges of the power station to help create a sense of distance. The soft-blurred effect also enhances the light effect as it washes out the chimneys.

Finally, I worked on the details like refining the highlights and proportions of the benches. The phone box was too bright, so I reduced the value and chroma of the red, with a subtle glow of the light hitting the roof and passing through its windows.

Finished!

“London Evening, Winter Shadows”

40 x 50 cm, oil on linen.

I love the low, cold light in this painting. I had so much fun layering the positive and negative space in the trees to create a sense of light and movement.