Painting The Streets Of Philipsburg, St Maarten

On these cold wintry January days in Saskatchewan, I like to recall our travels to warmer climes.

When I work with a source photo from some place hot and sunny, it transports me back in time and space.

Such was the case last week, when I pulled out this photo taken a year ago on the streets of Phillipsburg, the capital of the Dutch side of Sint Maarten in the Caribbean.

My first step was to create a values sketch with sepia pen in my sketchbook.

It’s a great way to work out the darks and lights in a composition and make decisions about what to include and what to omit from the painting.

From there, I created an ink sketch on watercolor paper and started adding color. I used rough textured Winsor and Newton watercolor paper.

It created some lovely textured effects in the color (i.e. – the blue awning on the right), but it also seemed to dampen the vibrancy of the color.

Having taken that piece as far as I could, I decided to recreate the image on Strathmore cold press paper – something with a bit less texture and smoother finish.

I also tried to recapture the freedom in the line work of the initial sketch by using a Sailor bent nib fountain pen which gives more variation in lines. This time, I simplified both the drawing and the application of paint.

In the end, I like both pieces for different reasons. The first piece reads more clearly in the detail of the garments for sale, the tree looming over the scene, as well as the signs and windows. The second piece feels much more expressive and captures some of the energy of the original values sketch.

I’d be interested to hear which one you prefer and why.

PS – If you click on the individual images, they will expand to a larger version so you can see more details.