St Georgia part 7

The past few days have been devoted to things related to employment, which has given my proofs of the latest saint print time to dry.  Meanwhile I had spent some time studying colors and considering my options.  Originally in my head I was thinking a basic gray for all the stone of the church, but two things changed my mind.  First, I still haven't had time to buy more watercolors, including the hues that typically make neutral grays, and if this church were gray it would take a lot of paint.  Second, pigeons/doves have a lot of gray color in their feathers, and I'd like them to be seen.  Warmer color architecture would give more contrast.  Besides, I know enough art history to know that while neutral gray is the common color of neoclassical architecture, back in St Georgia's day all kinds of color stone was used, so I had options.

For today's color test, I was using the 2nd lesser proof from my printing session a few days ago.  I knew I'd go with a typical blue sky, so put that in first, some pthalo wash.  The stone walls are all done with a limited edition burnt sienna, with the variety in value coming from gradually adding more water.  For the various roof sections (tower and apse) I went with one called terre ercolano, which is pretty much a terra cotta, standard for roof tiles all over Italy and not uncommon in traditional European architecture. Had no bird photos with me today, so I just put down some blue/gray colors that I associate with this type of bird, premixed colors I already had on my palettes.

In the final version, I will play around with intensities (so far I prefer the lighter value brown on the tower to the darker version on walls in the foreground) but I think this general palette will work well. I will research bird plumage patterns a little more, but when I go in next week to color the final version, this color combination is what I expect to use.