Sunset factory views

The other day I made bunch of paintings down by the canal after work, this was the last one I did on the day as the sun set on the Falaise escarpment. In the foreground is part of the Kruger paper recycling factory. Smoke stacks off to the right, unseen in the painting, were hissing loudly the whole time, it must have been time to boil the paper and cardboard. I waited a little while for the sun to hist the tree line, and found a good composition. Starting with the sky, I made a yellow, orange, and magenta pattern around the sun (which is just the white paper), then applied a blue-orange fade on the rest of the sky. Outlining the factory in paint, I then filled in the escarpment trees with perylene green (PBk31) mixed with some pyrol orange (PO73) and carbon black (PBk6). Where the sun meets the tree line, its just the pyrol orange to give a glowing effect. 

Sunset Kruger recycling factory, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2026

Further to the east, and about 25 minutes earlier, I made this painting of the sun going down behind the old Maltage factory. Located next to the still active st Ambroise brewery, this giant structure has been the subject of many paintings, and quite often photographers are there taking pictures of it as I paint. Similar to the first painting, I made rings of yellow, orange and magenta, but then applied a thin yellow ochre (PY43) wash, with quick brushstrokes in blue (PB15) and blue green (PB15 + PG7) to give the sense of clouds. Working fast keeps the sky looking smooth... wait too long and the clouds get hard edges which looks unpleasant. I've gotten pretty good at painting skies over the years. I did a page called How to Paint Skies, it has almost 400 views!

Sun down old maltage factory, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, July 2026