Manchester in the Snow, Printworks & Urbis Print | Manchester Art Prints – Alan Reed
Manchester Art Prints
- In 2009 I was exhibiting at Manchester’s Buy Art Fair. I decided to do an original watercolour of one of Manchester’s famous architectural landmarks. I titled it Manchester in the Snow. It was of the Printworks that overlooked the venue of the Art Fair that year, the Urbis building. A number of weeks before the fair I spent a weekend in Manchester when it rained for much of the time. I managed to do a very “wet on wet” study of the Printworks which helped to capture something of the mood and atmosphere of the city. Along with the reference photographs, I was able to start on the studio painting.
Before embalming on the finished painting, I did an A5 study of one of the figures I planned to place in the painting. He was a rather portly gentleman sheltering under an umbrella. I wanted to make sure the painting was going to work. So I then did an A4 watercolour on hand made paper with a deckled edge. I used this to refer to for colour and composition.
A very “wet on wet” study of the Printworks and Urbis building in the city of Manchester, a technique which helped to capture something of the mood and atmosphere of the city on a wet snowy day.
