Tutorial on how to paint attractive houses

In order to do a painting of houses, one has to go to the spot, sit at a suitable position, and do the drawing first.

The very first thing that needs to be done is to draw the perspective lines, as the row of houses get smaller and smaller. Then, the roof line has to be drawn for every house. Concentration remains on one or two houses, and the other houses on either sides are done sketchily. Once the roof lines are drawn, one needs to come down and do the windows, doors and balcony, if any. The top lines of these have to be drawn in a way so that the lines remain parallelly aligned to the line immediately above it (roof line - see the drawing ). The bottom lines of doors and windows will be a bit slanted downwards to keep the perspective right. Any mismatch will immediately hurt your vision. Then do the necessary correction. Architectural designs are very important. Do not ignore them. Look for the smallest details. They also play such an important part in the whole painting.

Human Figures should be drawn with minimum of pencil (or brush) strokes. That is the trick.

A house has basically four sides. But only two sides are visible to us from a given angle, one in full, the other in part. Only one side should be receiving the full light. That is the main focus.

These paintings are done in three (or four) stages. Colours of three tonal values are used. There are some very small areas that are very dark, like narrow strip of the Wall under the roof, areas just below any projected architectural work, inside of the rooms etc. Next there is the bulk area which is receiving partial light. This bulk area can be subdivided into two parts. But it is better for beginners to keep it as one. In this example two middle tone colour values have been used, brown and a bit darker blue. The front has some blue, but that falls under the category of very lighted up areas. Lastly, there are some heavily lighted small areas on the side that is receiving full light. While drawing, mark each such area with the appropriate pencil tone so that the painting work can be done later at the studio.

In the rough sketch below, note how the four beams have been extracted by painting the surrounding areas. This is negative painting. This method is very helpful while painting houses.

Painting - Paint the bulk middle tone areas first. Secondly the very little, very dark areas. Then paint the little heavily lighted areas (railings, lighted up areas of the wall, beam ends,etc) in white or any very light matching colour. Lastly if you need to put some objects here and there, (clothes hanging from ropes etc.) do it in white or some light colour. Humans should be done in very dark colours with minimum brush strokes. Keep them somewhat unfinished. Some very little part of the human body may be shown as ighted up by doing them in white or the very light shade that you have used earlier.

At last, to show depth (inside of the room, not every inside, one or two) or distance, you may put just a little very dark blue. Use your artistic vision here. Paint the sky according to your liking. All edges, dark or light, must be very sharp.

Before starting study the pictures of this post very carefully. The pictures are arranged accordingly.

That's it. Now give it a try. Happy painting!!!!! Thank you!!!!!

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