Algeria, World Inspired Landscapes

Here is another painting that I created from memory and imagination based on Algeria, a large county on the north shore of Africa. I read a book on Algeria from the library and perused google maps to know more about what the country looked like. It was a mixed landscape of blistering desert in the south, with rolling hills and lush greenery in the north. At the Mediterranean shore there were ancient ruins from some long past civilization. This small painting captures all of that in one design. I also used some of the Hiroshige tricks including the three boats on the sea, the neopolitan sky, and the rooftops tucked away in the bottom right.

Another goal of this painting was to try out some of the new colours I got including indo blue, or PB60. The entire Mediterranean sea was done in this rich, deep blue colour. I also used it to make the greens and browns of the foreground. The sky was another blue PB15, called phthalo blue. The reds are done with ferrari red (PR254). I am listing the colour code in the blog now which was recommended by Bruce MacEvoy in his blog. He pointed out that many popular watercolour texts only say the name of the paint without mentioning the pigment code, which is the only definitive way to know which colour was used.

5 x 7" cold press, watercolour, March 2020