Watercolour of villa hallé in Paris in several stages

Here we are with my latest watercolour in the making, a watercolour of Villa Hallé. I have decided to present the various stages of the design of that watercolour. this watercolour depicts a ‘villa’ which in Paris speak means a privatised dead-end street (not the usual meaning of villa as in other parts of France or southern Europe).

Watercolour of villa hallé in Paris in several stages

On the right is phase zero of the watercolour with the main structure laid out for the drawing.

The original idea came from a visit to the designer house which was temporarily opened to the public in Paris’ 14th arrondissement, rue Hallé (number 38b for those who might still be interested in visiting the house).

For memory’s sake i took a quick snapshot of the villa from the top bedroom of that house with the camera of my mobile phone.

It’s a pretty bad camera but as my purpose is not to reproduce exactly what i see, it doesn’t matter at all. the format of the watercolour is rather small, and aimed at fitting into an existing frame.

Next comes phase one with the first colours being laid out. At that stage i have already spent a couple of hours on that watercolour, despite its small size. some of the areas of the watercolour have been left without colouring in order to give myself time to think about the colours that i will want to use on that painting.

This is namely the case for all these areas which will be kept very dark at a later stage such as the tree on the right-hand side. they will be coloured in phase two. at that stage i don’t know yet whether i will use India ink to highlight some of the areas of the drawing and i keep my options open at that stage.

It will somewhat spice up the process by bringing a bit of unexpected.

The following stages will be shown as I go along in the production of this watercolour

– pictures of the house in villa hallé are available here [Fr only]