São Paulo, Rooftop View, Brazil

São Paulo is a dense city filled with buildings of all shapes and sizes. Small brick shacks along side of towering apartment buildings, as seen in this view out of a second floor window. There were fireworks going off periodically while I painted this because it was close to new years.

Yellow plaster (or brick) is quite difficult to depict in a painting, too much yellow and it looks fake, too little and it looks muddy. There are two yellow walls in this painting, one in the foreground which was done in a single layer, and one up in the midground which was done in two layers (warm purple underneath, yellow on top). The key to creating natural looking yellow is to mix purple or green first, and then add in a bit of yellow.

5x7", Watercolour, 2014