DC Rowhouse

Last fall, Kate sent me this picture of a house she passes on her way to work. The mix of left over fall pumpkins with bright sparkly xmas lights on a dreary grey day caught her eye. I decided to try a line and wash painting of a section of the photo.

Now the hardest part of this for me is keeping the colour to a minimum. It's meant to highlight the ink drawing only and knowing when to stop is incredibly hard. I had to put this away twice so I wouldn't keep adding 'just a bit here' because that doesn't end well. Not that the outcome is bad per se, it just ends up not being what I set out to do. So here is my result. For now :^)

The original looks better than this scanned version - the suggestion of leaves on the tree looks yellow here where in fact it's a light but definite green. The shadowed archway behind the shrub near the lower right corner looks nonexistent here. I do like the potted plants though so that's something. Not sure what it needs but it needs something. Will have to ponder that and report back.

Okay, I couldn't stop myself. Let's see what it looks like now.

Well that's better. It's hard to tell here because the paler colours ie the shadows under the windowsills and roofline don't seem to scan well. But I'm happier with the balance of coloured areas in this version.
 This is something I need to remember when I'm setting cards up ready for printing. I know at Xmas last year the colours weren't as saturated as I would've liked them to be and I must take care of that before I send them out.

And I really like the 'less than perfect' application of colour, something else that's hard for me to leave alone even though I like the look. I really need to mat it and frame it now.