Painting the Haymarket

I love iconic architecture, but some places are iconic in different ways. The Gherkin, Lloyds and the Shard are buildings that are distinctive in shape. They are relatively simple and easy to find a “classic view” and show the whole of the architecture. Somewhere like London’s Haymarket demands a different approach.

When painting the Haymarket, I struggled because

There’s no single classic view!

With so much to choose from, where do you start? Where do you stand? Which buildings do you include? Which buildings should you omit? What’s the centre of attention, out of the many interesting details?

The expression “Like a kid in a Sweetie Shop” comes to mind.

My final choice included Her Majesty’s Theatre and the Theatre Royal.

This is the complete view as a Work in Progress

I found details such as the theatre signs gave me scope to experiment.

So I did. Love the look of the ink trail over the base layer.

Somewhere like the Haymarket needs to be busy to really give a sense of the place,

I take a few photos of a scene and my choice depends on where the people and cars are.

I like to leave areas white, like these windows on the Theatre Royal.

Finally, the finished painting

With a detailed piece like this, I have to pant several layers to get the various colours and details I want.

It can seem to take forever to get the job done, but it’s usually worth it.

Here is a timelapse Video of painting the Haymarket.

If you enjoyed this video, you might like to check out some of my other Time lapse Video’s over on Youtube.