My next painting will be based on ‘VOS Passion’ moored alongside these blue silos in Aberdeen harbour. I like the strong primary red & blue, with a touch of yellow and the vertical silos.

And this is the first step in my painting.

It’s a light outline of the composition in water-soluble ink on watercolour paper. The next step will be to go over some/all of of the lines again with permanent ink.

This might seem a bit of a faff, but when I put on the watercolours the soluble ink separates and spreads slightly to give a halo effect around the permanent lines. It’s not an ‘in-your-face’ halo, but a subtle effect that most won’t even notice, but I’ve been experimenting with it on a few recent paintings and I like it.

Prints of this one should be on sale in my online shop at https://GordonMclemanArt.etsy.com early in the New Year.