Osaka Castle

Strong sunlight creates the most exciting shapes for a painting. When light hits a historic building like Osaka Castle, it divides the scene into bright white areas and cool dark shadows. My main goal in this piece was to capture that wonderful contrast without making the dark areas look heavy or muddy.

The secret to keeping shadow areas transparent is using clean mixes of ultramarine blue and burnt umber. For the bright roofs of the castle, a light wash of viridian green mixed with cobalt green gives that classic aged bronze look. I wanted the white walls to stand out, so I left the bare paper clean and used a dark background of trees painted with yellow ochre and viridian green to push the building forward.

Figures in a landscape bring life and a sense of scale to big buildings. I painted the people along the pathway quickly using simple shapes. A touch of cadmium red on a jacket or a bag adds a small pop of warm colour against the cool blue shadows lying across the road. Shadows cast on ground should always connect the people to the landscape naturally.