Temple of Kom Ombo in watercolour

This painting is of the Temple of Kom Ombo (Hill of Gold) in Egypt and is, apparently, an unusual piece of architecture in that it is a double temple. 

I found the photo on Pixabay (copyright free) and decided to 'flip' the image for my painting. I chose to paint all of it with Schmincke Horadam super-granulating watercolour paints: Shire Blue, Glacier Turquoise, Shire Yellow, Volcano Red, Volcano Orange, and Urban Yellow. The paper is a sheet of Saunders Waterford 300lb cold press cut down to 17" x 22", suitable for a very large hardwood charity shop frame that I have in my possession, if I decide to frame it. As is usual, I traced the image using my computer monitor as a light-box. I don't call tracing 'cheating'. I call it saving time. 

Temple of Kom Ombo, Egypt

I was faced with big decisions to make besides flipping the image. The first one was that I decided, after all, not to paint the complete building and compromised by painting much of the left-hand side in Shire Blue, indicating a ghost or shadow of what is there. Then I thought it was perhaps lacking the fancy splashes and cauliflowers that so many artists feel compelled to do nowadays and it was at that point I decided to leave well enough alone. There is so much that artists can continue to add to their paintings until it is either a great success or a great big mess. Even the Egyptian characters were mostly ignored and I just added a few in pencil. 

Temple of Kom Ombo, Egypt by
DEZALB Pixabay