Skip to main content

Step-by-step: Painting the bell tower and waterfall of Longwood Gardens


Chimes Tower at Longwood Gardens, Watercolor. 9"x12".

Here's a step-by-step look at how this watercolor landscape was made. 

Inspiration was rooted in many family visits to Longwood Gardens outside of Philadelphia. We had ice cream near this pond that features a small waterfall and a bell tower from which musical chimes can be heard playing.

Step 1


I sketched out the composition, placing the tower in one of the thirds of the image.


 Step 2



I placed washes of blue for the sky and green for all of the areas of foilage. I also placed base colors for the tower, dry ground, and stones.


 Step 3



Next, I used richer and darker greens to make shadows in trees, bushes, and ivy on the tower. I also began coloring shadows in the tower.


Step 4



I painted more shadows under leaves and stones to suggest detail, using a variety of light and dark greens. 

Step 5



I painted shadows and details for the left half of the wooded area and waterfall. I also darked leaves to the right of the tower under cast shadow from larger trees outside the viewing area on the right.

Step 6



Finally, I put in the evergreen tree detail and water reflections in the foreground. I also added finishing touches all around.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to draw - step by step process drawing a cow in pencil and ink

Longhorn cow.  Pen and ink sketch.  2017 I took photos of the steps taken to draw this longhorn cow for day 4 of Inktober. We encountered this very pretty cow during one visit to Lake Tobias. The materials I used were: a cell phone photo, sketchbook, .07 mechanical pencil, kneaded eraser, Faber Castell ink pens and brush pen, and a water brush filled with a mix of reddish watercolor ink.  1) First, I drew a rectangle box to contain the shape of the body and a triangle that would contain the shape of the head. I then drew straight lines to mark off angles and body parts. Next, I began drawing lines to define the cow's form. 2) I drew lines within the straight line boxes to define the animal's form and parts. 3) After the shape of the cow and its parts were defined, I began to draw little details and mark areas where shading and color could be added later. 4) I outlined the pencil lines with ink and used a water brush filled with ...

Leopard speed painting

 Here’s a video of my process painting a leopard for my nephew. 

T. Rex is 'Tyrant Lizard King'

Tyrannosaurus Rex. 9"x12" Watercolor. After seeing photos of scaly Tyrannosaurus Rex skin, I painted the picture above using colors and patterns inspired by other large reptiles. Tyrannosaurus Rex means "tyrant lizard king", although it wasn't much like any lizard today. It's resemblance was more that of a dragon walking on two feet. At 40 feet long and weighing 8 tons (14 metric tons), tyrannosaurus was enormous. It stood 12 feet tall and had bone crushing teeth the size of bananas. It isn't known whether T-Rex was a scavenger or a fierce hunter, but its forward pointing eyes could be indicators of a keen sense of sight and razor sharp focus on its prey. Here's a second Tyrannosaur painting and a reference photos taken in the wild. Mother Tyrannosaur leading her young. 6.5"x 9" Watercolor. Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. Smithsonian c. 2018.