This is a scene based on a photo that I had taken while on vacation some time back:
I started the sketch with a black faber castell Pitt water proof pen on a paper blank journal. The paper is archival quality but not watercolor paper, I just wanted to make sure
I loosened up and didn’t go into any kind of detailed rendering. With these sketches, I am looking more to establishing mood and atmosphere , at overall shapes and light and dark patterns, being free and having fun experimenting with different styles.
I have already started indicating a few shadows with the pen. I wanted it to have more color than the scene actually has, so I washed the walls with yellow from raw sienna + hansa yellow medium, pink from rub red + red madder and orange from raw sienna + pyrrol scarlet. The shadws are from dumonts blue and burnt sienna.
The green for the plants is perm. green light and hansa yellow medium with the dumonts blue and burnt sienna for the darks. The water is also washed with the same dark green with the color of the buildings thrown in.
Watercolor Journal 