This week I have been painting a street scene of Tianjin, the port town closest to Beijing. It wasn't a particularity nice place but had a picturesque old town. I thought that a busy street scene would contrast with the Bradford street scenes I have already painted, so this is quite a different composition to those. I thought it must be strange coming from the bustling streets of Indian and Chinese cities to Bradford's comparatively, erm, sparse town centre.
This scene is also peculiar to my usual in that it is taken from quite a low angle so has quite a lot of sky. Perhaps I was crouching? I started with the sky which in China, and Tianjin in particular is heavy with smog. I wanted it to look like a heavy lair below the blue sky, it really is unpleasant.
I then started on the buildings in the foreground in a particularity loose style. These shops are crammed with gift shop tat and coupled with the painted red and green building exteriors, it's quite an assault on the senses. Bradford looks so monochrome in comparison.
With the left hand side completed, fading into the smoggy background, I started on the right hand side of the street, which is a little lighter. All done using a palette knife as usual.
With the buildings completed, I populated the scene. Most of these people are taken from my photograph, although I added certain elements such as the dog because there was too much blank space. My friend Dan can be seen rifling through his bag. I also smogged up the background a bit more, notice it is lighter than above.
A few finishing touches - the string of lanterns was used to break the sky up a bit and I added more details to the building front left. I'd started in a looser style than when I finished and it stood out a bit. Looking at it now I think the foreground is a bit light, so I think I'll add a bit of texture and then it's done!
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