El Palmar Parc, Natural de l'Albufera, Valencia, Spain.

How to show strong, bright light without making your artwork look too busy? It is a common problem because when the sun is high, it can wipe out all the small details. In my new artwork, El Palmar Parc, Natural de l'Albufera, Valencia, Spain, you can see how I try to solve this. I leave large areas of the white paper completely dry to show the strong sun on the side of the buildings.

The secret is to balance the bright light with deep, cool shadows. For the shadows on the walls and under the boats, I used a rich mix of cobalt blue and neutral tint. This dark colour makes the white buildings stand out much more. The red roof was painted with a warm touch of cadmium red, which adds a nice bit of colour against the blue water.

Water is always fun to paint, especially when there are buildings and boats next to it. For the calm river surface, I used a soft wash of cerulean blue and cobalt blue. While the paper was still wet, I painted the reflections of the boats using darker strokes. I did not try to paint every single movement in the water, just a few quick lines to show the ripple of the tide.

To finish the scene, I added some simple figures near the boats to give a sense of life and size. I also used viridian green mixed with yellow ochre for the trees in the background to keep the greens soft and natural.