Tuscan hamlet at dawn

Tuscan hamlet at dawn

In the surroundings of Monsummano Terme, walking uphill last Summer, we came across a beautiful landscape of a small hamlet backed by two large cypress trees.

I love to draw. So my preliminary drawing of the landscape was rather detailed on properly scaled paper, with tonal values as I saw fit.

With this exercise of painting, my goal was to do a colour study on this Tuscan rural composition and test the technique of painting the first wash on pre-wet paper, trying to prevent the paper from buckling when drying by wetting also the back of the paper.

In step 1, I transferred my drawing to a clean quarter sheet of 140 lb cold-press Arches watercolour paper.

In step 2, I applied the first wash with light tonal value colors after I pre-wet the paper. The result regarding the buckling of the paper while drying was not as expected.

In step 3, I painted the foreground after the paper was completely dry.

Finally, I painted more details to highlight the focal point on the central building and the Cypress trees behind it.