Painting the backdrop to a model railway layout

My husband is in the process of building a new z gauge model railway layout of an imaginary small town in Switzerland.

The background is painted in acrylic paint on mountboard. I first looked online for advice on how to paint backdrops, as I had done this only once before some years back, and soon realised that we did most of the process the opposite way to the advice given, namely:

- one should create the background first (we made the layout first)
- backgrounds that go around the corner are not advised (ours has three sides)
- perspective views should be avoided (I joined one road on the layout to the background)

Despite all this, I am quite pleased with the result, and it took me just three days to create (one for planning and two for the actual painting).

In the shade of the chestnut tree

Whenever I have walked past this chestnut tree, I have been impressed by its size and thought it would make a good subject. I photographed it on a particularly sunny day for reference and painted it this strong yellow to convey a sense of light and warmth.

After turning the painting upside down for assessment, I felt the yellow was too isolated and introduced the same colour into the shadow underneath it to help with unity.

Ich bin oft an diesem Baum in der Zofinger Altstadt vorbeigegangen und habe schon lange vorgehabt, ihn einmal zu malen.  Mir gefällt seine Grösse und ich stelle mir vor, dass er schon sehr alt ist. Wieviele Generation haben sich wohl in seinem Schatten unterhalten und ausgeruht?

Ich möchte mit meinem Bild eine lebhafte und lichtvolle Atmosphäre wiedergeben und habe deshalb für den Baum ein kräftiges Gelb gewählt.

Vintage steam engine

Nene Valley Railways, steam engine

This is outside the engine sheds of  Nene Valley Railways. Engines are quite complicated to draw, which I solve by simplifying the shapes, as I am not interested in technical detail. 

Looking at the subject through half closed eyes is a good way to cut out detail when judging overall shapes and tone. 

I suppose this painting is about shadow and light and how to make greys colourful. Most of them I mixed from varying proportions of alizarin crimson (Winsor & Newton), raw sienna (Jacksons) and turquoise blue (Turner).

Still life with fan

watercolour 30cm x 40cm

when it's getting too hot to paint outside, then a still life set up indoors is just ideal. One doesn't have to spend long on choosing the items for it, whatever appeals should make a pleasing arrangement.

I chose the tea towel to complement the jug and used a limited palette to make sure the colours work together.

Some of the items you choose may have a personal significance. In my case, the jug on the left used to belong to my husband's grandmother and it's nice to record heirlooms in this way.

Market Square, Peterborough

We visited Peterborough in March, on the day of the Royal Wedding. There was a large Morris Dance event on at the same time, and I wanted to capture some of it as incidental detail in this painting.

Two cats by the window

Two cats, watercolour

I looked after these two cats for my son while they moved house and really enjoyed having them. They are two siblings, Athena (on the left) and Hercules.

They are still quite young and playful and enjoyed sitting on the window sill, catching insect (real and imaginary) and watching whatever was going on outside.

I painted this on khadi paper, mixing the black tones from ultramarine blue mixed with raw sienna and permanent crimson alizarin. The red tones on Athena were mostly pure burnt sienna.

Nene Valley Railways

On the day of the Royal Wedding, we went on a rail trip to the Nene Valley to celebrate my husband's birthday. Although we had expected a steam engine, our train was pulled by a vintage Diesel engine, which apparently is used once a month.

We had an hour's break in Peterborough, which had a Morris Dance event on. It was very enjoyable to see so many different styles of Morris Dancers. In the park in front of the Cathedral, a big screen was installed to broadcast the Royal Wedding and lots of people had set up for a picnic, some little girls dressed up as bridesmaids to celebrate the occasion.

I liked this little scene of the three people chatting, waiting for the departure of the train. The bright sunshine made for strong contrasts in tone.