IMAGINE DRIVING INTO A CITY AT DUSK, approaching that last curtain of light. You’re on the bridge and can see building after building in the distance. What’s the first thing you notice? Is it the lights glowing from all the bustling activity? Is it the slight reflection of shapes bouncing off the water? Can you see the stars dancing in the sky? Your view of a city need not be literal. Feel free to take your own liberties on what you actually see or feel when drawing upon this imaginary composition. The challenge is to remain loose without losing sight of your vision.
2 Claybord tiles
Assorted brushes, flat and round
Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen, fine tip
Fluid acrylic: Carbon Black
Glazing mediums
Golden high flow acrylics: Carbon Black, Diarylide Yellow, Payne’s Gray, Pyrole Red, Shading Gray, Titan Buff, Turquoise
Golden high flow dauber tip
Scraping tools
Spray bottle with water
Stabilo water-soluble graphite pencil
Establish where your city will appear on the landscape. Paint a bright yellow sky and a neutral gray below the horizon line, where the water will be. The yellow will give you a sense of light from the buildings once the panels are complete. Since Claybord is a very porous surface, you may have to apply several layers of paint to build up a solid background.
Spray water over the surface, and pick up some of the paint with a paper towel. Work around the piece. Rub the paint in, add texture by making marks with your brush, pull up color. Be loose and have fun!
Use a sharp Stabilo water-soluble graphite pencil. Very loosely draw a cityscape onto the surface. Focus on rectangles and squares, the suggestion of city buildings. Vary the sizes of the shapes, overlapping some to create a sense of depth. Keep it simple and abstract.
Start with a light mixture of Titan Buff and build up a layer of color inside the building shapes.
Water down Payne’s Gray and add to your city shapes. Add a touch of Payne’s Gray to where your water is located to suggest shadows and the reflections of the buildings.
Begin developing your water with loose strokes of color in Turquoise. Add some of that color into the buildings as well for additional shading.
Add a bit of red to suggest the warm glow of signs in the night skyline. Darken the water with another layer of Payne’s Gray. Blend with a paper towel to soften the look.
Play with paint splatters. Allow the splatters to land all over the two pieces.
To add depth, use a Golden high flow bottle with a dauber tip attached to dab some black paint into the water.
Mix a glaze of Carbon Black fluid acrylic and glazing mediums. With a flat brush that has a crisp edge, paint around the buildings, allowing some of the yellow background to show through. Add some black in between a few of the shapes.
Take an old pen or the back of a brush and draw lines into the wet black paint, scraping away the paint and suggesting bridge wires that connect the two panels. Imagine looking at the city from the other side of the bridge.
Add white splatters over the black sky to suggest stars. Let dry. Finish the details of windows, doors and other shapes with a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen with a fine tip.
