Virginia creeper - watercolour painting and pencil drawing

 

Last week we visited the Castle Ruin of Valkenburg (Netherlands) and one of the things that attracted my attention was this plant in full Autumn colours creeping over the walls of the castle. I made some reference pictures to make a pencil drawing.

The drawing was made but for several reasons I was not completely happy with the result

and I decided to use the drawing (second picture) as a study for a watercolour painting.

For the watercolour painting (first picture) the paper was given a hint of colour, using the colour of the 'mergel' or marl stones that were used to construct the castle. On top of that background I painted the leaves of the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and added the structure of the stones using a watercolour pencil. 

The emphasis of the watercolour painting is now on the plant and its autumn colours as I wanted it to be.

The information about the materials I have used for both the drawing and the painting, the sizes of the works and the availabilities can all be found in my Tumblr blog.