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Tower Bridge Project using Academy Watercolour Paints

by artist Linda Stevens

Materials used Watercolour paper Academy Sketching 6B Pencil Academy Watercolour Paint: Blue 05, Dark Blue 04, Yellow Ochre 08, Dark Green 06, Dark Brown 10, Burnt Umber 08, Black 11, Brown 09 Saucer / palette Large round paintbrush Tissue

Use your shapes to guide you to draw your design. Circles, squares, triangles and oblongs are the basics of drawing.

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Draw your shapes using the oblong to create the towers. The tower on the left side should be smaller than the right side to give perspective. Once you have drawn your picture go on to the next stage. We recommend using a 6B pencil for the outline.

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Trace your design onto a piece of watercolour paper. We will start with the sky; mix Blue 05 into a saucer, this way you can get a large wash. Using a large round brush apply your wash onto the sky area. To create the clouds take a wet tissue and before the sky wash has dried lift out areas to create the amount of clouds you require. Use Dark Blue 04 for the river. Once these two colours have dried use Yellow Ochre 08 for the bridge. The bridge struts are again Dark Blue 04. At this stage we are just putting down basic colours and you must let this dry completely before moving on.

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We can now start to put in some of the shadows. The windows are Dark Brown 10 combined with a little Burnt Umber 08 and some Black 11 to gives soft shadows. The darker shadows under the bridge are a combination of Dark Brown 10 and Black 11. Leave this to dry.

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This is the final stage where we start to put in the detail at the top of the towers. For the window panes use Dark Brown 10 and then Black 11 over the top for the detail. Black 11 is also used for the archways and under the bridge ironwork. The buildings behind the bridge are Dark Brown 10 mixed with Brown 09. For the stonework around the tower bases use Brown 10 and the steelwork is Dark Blue 04 to give the impression of more depth. The river is also Dark Blue 04 applied as squiggly lines to give the impression of movement in the water. Dont worry if the paint goes on quite pale thats the beauty of watercolour. The paints look quite dark in the tin but when you run your brush over the pigment it comes out pale. The secret of using watercolour is the more layers you apply the stronger the colour becomes but dont forget, by its very nature watercolour will always dry paler. Your painting is now complete!

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