Horniman circle garden

Remember the old Lay's jingle: "No one can eat just one"? Well the feeling is quite similar when I describe a sketching session at the Horniman circle garden. You cannot sketch here just once! Circumvented by landmarks like Asiatic library, Elphinstone building, St. Thomas Cathedral church this place is a sight to sore eyes wherever you look.

At 2:30 pm in Bombay's heat, I decided to sketch whatever good was at sight from inside the Starbucks cafe(Which BTW has amazing interiors at this particular place) and not risk the sun outside. I ended up drawing the visible section from the cafe window of St. Thomas Cathedral Church:

Observations and discovery:

1. Choosing a focal point. : Every painting/ sketch has a point in focus, a region of more significance than the rest. This means either using strong colours, sharper edges or putting most details in that area. Eg. : The trees in the background do not have leaves while the ones in the front do as they are meant to be more prominent.
   I did a mistake of putting bright red on the lamp post which draws unnecessary attention.
2. Texture: The plain walls initially were bothering me for lack of life in the picture. No matter how much shadow or layer of colours I put to change the saturation, it seemed lifeless. Then I decided to put bricks and voila! I ended up discovering a new technique while doing that, which involves washing semi dried feature to give a smoother texture. 
3. Shadows: I need to learn how to put it on the sheet! No matter what colour I used for the shadow (Blue/payne'sgrey/purple), it looked comical! Then I discovered this colour "Sepia Coloree" which beautifully complimented the warm colors while also putting the dull shadow without taking too much light. Tip: Check out the entire palette before dabbing the brush like a colour blind monkey!!
4. Leaves: Layers! On wet layer or on dry layer the leaves turn up beautifully. Next time I would try to use shadows too, but for the first time it is OKAY. 

Thank you to Anurag Bishnoi ji for the wonderful colours which is making my learning process faster and more elegant.