Hippong Homestead

The Story Behind the Urban Sketching

Sketch 5 from the Miles Historical Village and Museum, the Hippong Homestead. This was a wonderful building to sketch but I was a little worried because of its bland colours. I absolutely love the hand made seat, with all the horse shoes and shovels welded into the backrest. I thought I had some more photos of it as well as inside the building but obviously not.

The Village is having a radio play under the stars in a few days time so I’m looking forward to seeing the performance and what the village looks like after dark.

My Sketching and Painting Process

Pencil outline of building is fairly straightforward if you’re good at perspective. I’m just glad that I took technical drawing classes at school.


Using a 0.05 fine liner pen to neaten up the pencil lines and give you an idea where you’re going to place the watercolour paint.


Adding the watercolour to create a nice tin roof and a representation of all the timber planks.

I manage to find a little bit of colour in the plants, but I’m still having trouble letting go and experimenting with my imagination.


Here you can see the use of the Tombo brush pens, which are just like a felt-tip pen on one end and a brush on the other.

These pens are good to add a little bit of shadow and start to give you some tone and definition.


More detail added with the fine liners adding woodgrain and knots to the timber.

I also added the bench and table which I forgot in the initial pencil sketch.

As you can see the iPhone seems to add more contrast and black to the overall image than the scanned image below.


I made a few slight changes to the final image because I didn’t like the blank white square on the right hand side of the building.

I thought by adding a few plants and shovel to the side of the veranda it would brake up the white square and become less distracting.


Watercolour Paint, Ink & Paper

I use Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolour on Arches France Watercolour Paper, 300g Hot Pressed.

Tombo Brush Pens N15, N45, N55, N60, N65, N95 and Faber Castell Fine-liners 0.05, 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7

My painting come from my own experiences that I have photographed while traveling. By reading this blog, you as a viewer can now hear The Story Behind the Painting. Where, when, what was happening while I was photographing the wildlife.
If you want more details about my adventures checkout my travel blog website www.ChrisOsborneAdventures.wordpress.com 

Enjoy, Chris Osborne

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