Pirajussara, Brazil

Here is a painting of a scene looking out the back window of a family member's house in a city called Embu in Brazil, the neighborhood is called Pirajussara. The remarkable aspect of this scene was how the community was building their homes and businesses on the rugged hillsides and in among the dense trees and foliage. There were kids flying kites, and traditional music was being played on a guitar with singing accompaniment from one of the balconies.

The weather was hot and humid making it difficult to capture detail, most of the work had to be completed in one or two layers. I also was standing up to complete the work with my equipment on a windowsill. The key to this composition is the large tree in the center, it anchors the treeline in the rear onto the line of houses on the bottom. I did the big tree first, and then painted the treeline, while sketching in the outline of the houses using pale blue paint. Waiting for it to dry took about 15 minutes, then I could get a bit of detail on top like in the roof tiles and some brick work.  Emphasizing yellow was important to give it that sun-drenched feel.

8 x 10" cold press watercolour, January 2017

PS, the painting says 2016 on it, this was not correct, I have a habit of writing the previous year on things for awhile in January!