We’re having some work done to extend the house. Which means that this awesome machine was parked in our garden for a few days!

This is a great opportunity to paint some orange, which you don’t often get if painting from life. I also enjoyed trying to get the feel of the machinery, especially the dirtier parts, but I’m not sure I succeeded in the way I was going for. Finally, painting the cab was a lot of fun, but the fine detail of that space was tough to get on the rough watercolour paper I was using.

In fact, the notebook that this is in is so rough that I’m not sure I’m going to keep using it. One thing I can do with it though is load it with water to make the gradations visible in some areas of the picture above. Perhaps that’s a technique worth experimenting with?