Sketching on a grey Saturday, from a conveniently-placed Pret à Manger at the London Bridge end of Borough High Street. Wandering about London, I am struck how often Pret have bagged all the best sketching spots – clearly they are sympathetic towards artists.
The was a fairly swift sketch, not least because it started to rain just as I was finishing: always a surefire way not to over-work a painting.
This was the first wash. I thought I had made the heavy shadow from the bridge too dark, but lo and behold it annoyingly faded away while drying, and later needed to be strengthened . I am reminded of a quote of Edward Wesson, one of the masters of twentieth-century British watercolour: “If it looks right when it’s wet, it’ll be wrong when it’s dry”. I should have this tattooed on my brush-hand.
Here’s a photo of the view. Apart from demonstrating that even a good camera can’t record nearly as wide a range of contrasts as the human eye, it shows that I’ve taken a few liberties with the traffic lights to avoid cluttering things up. Conversely, the picture would probably have benefitted from a few figures in the foreground to break it up – or some judicious cropping. But still, I’m happy with it given the time constraints. Perhaps I’ll donate it to Pret?
Jonathan Bray Art 