Tower Bridge from Cannon Street station

Tower Bridge from Cannon Street station © Peter Gander

I often travel into Cannon Street in the mornings and the sun at this time of day is just coming up over The Thames from the east behind Tower Bridge, silhouetting it against a vapour trail-scarred sky. Much detail is rendered into simple shapes or silhouettes in this contre jour (against the sun) view and the sparkling water looks like a painter's dream. The rail signals of Cannon Street station are seen on the right. This is about as far as you can walk up the end of the platform to get such a fine view as it's purely a railway, not a pedestrian, bridge. Canary Wharf tower is visible in the background. This was painted with only Payne's Grey and Ultramarine and the heavyweight, pulpy Khadi paper on which it's painted allows for plenty of time for those lovely mixes of pigment to infuse into each other, as it stays wet for a good length of time. It virtually paints itself! Sparingly loading the brush (a Kolinsky blue squirrel mop) with dry pigment  and dragging the side of it across the paper gives the effect of sparkling water on the Thames as the tooth of the paper picks up the paint in a textured manner. Watercolour on 210gsm rough Indian Khadi paper. 24cm wide x 18cm high. • FOR SALE £75 email petergander@gmail.com with enquiries, first come, first served. UK mainland only, free postage. Non-UK £100 inc postage.