I visited the harbour area in Bristol in January 2023 on my bike and I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of the graffiti and the classical view of the bridge.
I’m hoping to create a muted background and a clourful forground to help the graffiti pop!
I painted a pink wash over a 100cm x 50 cm canvas and drew out the scene.
I reaslised I’d not quite gotten the proportions of the graffiti right, so rather than try to fix it I also realised that the graffiti has already changed in the weeks since the photo. The whole point is that new artists come along and add to it and change it… so why not me?
Not sure where the green worm emerged from *excess of paint from doing grass probably*… but they can stay.
I decided to paint in my lunch hour…
Seemed like a good idea, until I rushed things. I mixed some deep blue and it’s a brute and way too much. So what I added at lunch looks like a sticker on top of the painting.
I will be knocking it back somehow when it dries. Every day is a learning day!
That’s going to take some serious knocking back with some zinc white and moving the colours away from pure colours more towards grey to get it to sit in the painting.
Mixed in some zinc white to my blues and knocked back the red outlines. Warmed up the next set of graffiti and I think it’s working a lot better now.
I took a trip back to the scene of the crime this morning. All that remains from those few weeks ago is “WONK”.
I’m not sure if that liberates me to do what I want, or commits me to record the time of the photo faithfully?
I’m contemplating entering Landscape Artist of the Year… ehy not? If so, I need a submission photo of me, the artist. I think I need to do better than the one below!
I spent a bit of time on the foreground grass. Turns out grass is really hard! Think I’m getting the feel of long/short grass, and also the trodden grass on the right, where graffiti artists have obviously been.
A bit of post-breakfast / pre-work on the river and southwest bank. I don’t want to over-work things – I’m not trying for photo realism here, so I think I’m going to leave that alone.
I also knocked back the left tower of the bridge a bit. I still want it more in light than the Clifton side, but I needed to push it back a bit.
Getting closer!
Quick lunchtime 30 minutes paint… the tree at the end of the path went in and some bull rush seed heads. The tree had been scaring me to be honest as I have the least-steady hands (resulting in many a tantrum when playing Operation as a child), but I’m relatively happy with it.
Final touches…
I finished the graffiti on the wall. Not that it can ever be finished!
I adding some shadow to the monolithic “Ask” block and I painted the toadstool.
A final addition was the specks to indicate the birds floating in the river by the bank.
I think that’s finished. I could go on paitning it and fixing things, but I think I’m happy with it. Onto the next one.
If you’re interested in the Bristol street art scene then go take a look at https://scooj.org/ a website that documents what’s going on and changing in and around Bristol’s walls.
