Do you have buildings that draw you to them?
This Central Station painting features one of my favourite Manchester icons. Not sure why it is. Maybe the shape or because it’s an iconic image from my childhood but I keep coming back to it. The curved roofline catches my eye as I photograph the city looking for reference material.
Those photographs are transferred to paper and masked up. Looking something like this.
All this can take a while and be very tedious if the image is complex. So, when the painting begins, I can become a little enthusiastic. This time I wanted a night sky. Central Station tends to look very blue, so I expanded the colour range to counter this. Here’s the video of its creation.
Painting done, I left it to dry overnight.
Of course, I went dark, and picked out those lovely shadows. I have to be careful not to overwork the piece at each phase. Otherwise I’m left with one muddy mess.
This is where I finished on the second day.
I was itching to do the clock, they can be tricky but I love it when one works out well. In my enthusiasm, I got a bit carried away and had forgotten to charge my phone. Meaning, I didn’t take anymore video from here on, At this stage the painting phase is complete.
Finally, the masking is removed and we have the finished Manchester Central Station Painting.
Central Station – ©2019 – Cathy Read – Watercolour and Acrylic – 40 x 50 cm
See the full progress in video below.
I’m really pleased with the result, and I don’t always think that.
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