Paint a Christmas Market Scene – Introduction
In this live watercolor workshop, we will paint a Christmas market scene. Join us for live workshop #23.5!
This was a scene requested by my friend and patron Vy Ishere 🙂 Vy’s sent through a few requests but I thought this one was fitting seeing it’s close to the holiday season.
Reflection
The reference photo that this painting was based on was fairly complex. I had a quick glance at the photo originally, so one of the things I noticed, later on, was that the facade of the buildings wasn’t real! They’re cut-outs laid on top of the actual buildings. No matter, we can still improvise.
This is a great scene for those looking to learn how to draw and paint figures, as there are ample opportunities here to practice. I liked the figures on the right-hand side and the two in the middle, just their poses and movement. So I’ve focused on drawing them a bit more.
You can see the remaining figures have less detail, especially the ones in the background which are recessed further into the buildings. This is a technique that you can employ to create focal points or areas of interest. Often the eye will be drawn to areas of high detail and contrast.
By creating a darker contrast around the figures, you can draw attention to these areas.
If you draw the figures in first, then you won’t have a problem drawing the buildings afterward. It’s important to have overlapping shapes in a landscape like this so that there is a sense of depth and perspective in the scene.
The full video workshop is available here.