Food, Food Glorious Food!

Food, food glorious food, lovely except when you hear your P.E. teacher's words "a moment on the lips a lifetime on the hips!" She was so right, unfortunately it's not my hips I'm worried about, more my jelly belly and muffin top! 

As Italian food is one of my favourites, here's a sketch done of a lovely restaurant facade! Here's the finished sketch and the stages leading up to the finished work! 

 

This was a piece done on 25cm x 30 cm watercolour paper which has a very distinctive lined texture (not sure I like it!) 

How do I get started? Well, with a few pencil lines! 

I'm not really a big fan of using rulers because I want a loose, sketchy feel, but here I did mark the side walls and the different floors. If I'm out sketching I have a tiny ruler or I use the side of a pencil, sometimes I don't even bother. After this stage I move on to the ink lines, this was done with a rollerball pen in black, and watercolour. 

Yes, at the moment I'm in love with Payne's grey, and I'm splashing it everywhere. Having got the basics in, moving around the painting is the order of the day, otherwise I find it boring, and it also keeps the flow of the work. 

At this stage, I decided that the Payne's grey was a little dull and it needed a bit of zing, hence the purple that I like to use, not sure exactly what shade it is but it's Schminke Horadam and mind bogglingly purple! 

With watercolour you have to remember to layer and leave white paper as the highlights, unfortunately I thought the plants were getting a bit heavy handed, so I popped on a bit of gouache! 

Now feeling a bit peckish ......... wouldn't mind a for course meal now. Antipasti followed by pasta with ricotta and truffles, Florintine steak and something deliciously rich in calories to finish off with! Good wine and then .... the dreaded result on the scales! Sigh!!!!!!!