Weeping Tower Amsterdam

This time a more adventurous approach of a watercolour painting.
I tried to emphasis on the tower itself, but also  tried to make the tower belong in the cityscape.

My first wash without doing a sketch, it is just mixing beautiful colours in a way that it looks right, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna and Alizarin Crimson, not the pure colour, but everything is a mix of all. I mean you mix a bit of blue true the sienna and vice versa. Leave some white paper!

Then I sketched the scene after drying, and washed in the main shapes, don't paint buildings!

With the same colours off course as I used before.

3th phase and last phase is to lighten here and there some parts and add detail.
Its the part that is only 10% of your painting, but the result and impact of it, is the last 90% of the success of your watercolour.

History of the Weeping Tower or Schreierstoren

Erected in 1482, Schreierstoren was part of the defensive wall surrounding the city. During Holland’s Golden Age, the 17th and early 18th centuries, most of those fortifications were demolished. This stout brick tower survived because it served as a checkpoint for ships belonging to the Dutch East India Company.

Because Schreierstoren commanded the best view of the ships at port, Amsterdam’s women waved and wept from this point as their men headed out to sea. It came to be known as the Tower of Tears or the Weeping Tower. Today, it’s a shop. Attached to Schreierstoren is a plaque honouring Henry Hudson. From here, in 1609 he set sail in the Half Moon, to find a direct route to the East Indies; he found what would become Nieuw Amsterdam instead. This plaque was placed on Schreierstoren by an organization from my hometown, the Greenwich Village Historical Society.

140LBs Bockingford paper 36x48 cm