Painting process | Yellow Sunrise, Albert Bridge
What a joy it is to paint Albert Bridge again. It's my absolute favourite. I love it for its wild pastel colours, its beautiful reflections, and the way it looks different in every light. This view from Battersea Park, with an intense golden sunrise, makes it shimmer in the light.
You can watch the full time-lapse of this painting by clicking the image above.
Preliminary sketches and studies
I approached the scene unsure of how I was going to place the bridge in the painting. I eventually settled on a panoramic canvas and to place the right-hand columns and their reflection along the golden ratio line. This creates a strong cross-shaped composition and pulls your eye in to that point.
Next, I painted these small value studies to determine how light and dark the painting should be. I judged the darks off their relationship to the sky and water to make sure the contrast was sufficient for the light effect.
Finally, I painted this colour study to test the colour relationships before committing to the full painting. I was super happy with this rapid little painting and how the colours are harmonious and convincingly of a sunrise. I pushed the darks more towards purple to complement the yellow light.
The painting process
I was totally immersed in my painting and completely forgot to photograph the drawing stage, so if you want to see that, you'll need to watch the video time-lapse above. Sorry!
I started with a rough block-in of the predominant colour in each shape, trying to preserve the correct value for each.
The next stage was to start bringing the golden reflections into the water, and delineate the different objects within the larger shapes I'd already built.
I worked on bringing a glow to the light by dialling up the yellow in the highlights. I also softened the edges of all the trees and buildings in the background so that they melt into the sky without distracting from the foreground.
I had a fair bit of trouble with the abstract shape of the river bank on the left-hand side. Once I worked out which edges should be sharp and which should softly transition into the water, it started to look less like a big dark blob. Perseverance was the key here.
Finally, I put in the cables for the bridge, and I did this really quickly. I've painted this bridge countless times now, so that familiarity gave me freedom in my mark-making. I wanted the cables to feel like an impression, rather than precisely painted.
Finished!
"Yellow Sunrise, Albert Bridge"
70 × 30cm, oil on linen
I loved the energy I felt while painting this piece. It came together in such a natural way that I think you can sense it in the brushwork.
Details
Here you can see the intensity of the colours I used. The painting overall feels atmospheric and almost hazy, but close up the bridge is a bright pink, the buildings are a luminous pinky-orange, and the water is a sunny yellow. Striking that balance between realism and intense colour is my ultimate goal in all of my work.
I painted the row of little boats moored along the bank in a very suggestive way, using only a few flicks of paint. I wanted them to recede into the background behind the bridge.
The sharpest edge in the painting is here, directly under the bridge, and that acts as a point to draw your eye in and make the pylons on this end the focal point.
Here you can see how abstract the water is close up. It's almost a hatching of vertical and horizontal brushstrokes in different colours, but from farther away they become reflections and ripples. I'm learning to trust my viewer more and not to over-describe everything.
This painting will be available in my release of new paintings on August 6th. Sign up to my Collector Preview list to get early access.
