Watercolor - How I started to paint Historic Homes of Chadds Ford

I thought with my newest show beginning January 30th at the Malvern Retreat Center, I would show you how I began the process of creating this painting. 
First I thought of the many homes in Chester County that are historic that would make a great painting.  I have a number of watercolors of some of these homes, so I decided to create a new panoramic painting with four historic buildings.  

So I gathered my photos first of these buildings..... I have taken these over the past 30 years so there are some differences.  The John Chadd House, Washington and Lafayette's headquarters and the Barns Brinton home.  

Then I spent time sketching each home and finally cut out the homes to make sure they were properly sized, checking out the size of the windows and doors.  Here are the cutouts.

Then after selecting my watercolor paper, I spent hours drawing the homes, painting the background and finally painting each individual building.   So to see the finished painting that is over 30 " long, come to Malvern Retreat Center.