A london painting is the quickest way to bottle a city you love without packing a suitcase. Every scene below is built for a flat, graphic gouache style, the kind you see on a modern travel poster: bold shapes, a cream or soft grey sky, and just enough red and racing green to say London without a single word.
Scroll through all 32 and pick whatever catches your eye first, a double-decker, a corgi in a raincoat, a green front door. Each one is sized to finish in a single sitting, with the order to paint in, the place it tends to go wrong, and a swap if your kit is short something.
Using these images: free for personal projects such as printing, coloring, cards, journals and gifts. Handmade items that include them may be sold up to 30 pieces per design. More than that is commercial use and is not permitted, and neither is selling or sharing the images themselves or passing them off as your own. Please ask before any other use.
Start with the easiest icon in the whole set: a red double-decker passing Big Ben. Pencil the clock tower first, kept tall and narrow on one side of the page, then block in the bus as a simple rectangle on wheels crossing in front of it, slightly overlapping the base of the tower.
Paint the sky in flat cream or soft grey first so you have clean edges to cut the tower and bus against later. Mix a London red for the bus body, a warm stone colour for the tower, and keep window shapes as plain dark rectangles rather than drawing glass reflections.
The composition goes wrong when the bus and tower end up the same size and compete for attention. Keep the tower taller than the bus is wide, and let the bus sit lower in the frame so the eye reads tower first, bus second.
If you do not have a true London red, mix cadmium red with a touch of burnt sienna to warm it down from pink. Finish with a few white gouache highlights on the bus windows once everything else is dry.
Palette: London Red,Stone Grey,Cream,Charcoal
Notting Hill rewards anyone who loves colour in neat rows, so this is a natural second stop. Sketch three or four terraced house fronts side by side, each a simple rectangle with a pitched or flat top, and a flower cart sitting in front on the pavement.
Work house by house in flat colour: a soft pink, a pale blue, a buttery yellow, so each front reads as its own clean block before you add window and door detail. Paint the flower cart last, in loose dabs of red, pink and green, so it sits as the brightest note against the pastel fronts.
This scene turns muddy fast if you mix the house colours while wet on the page. Let each house dry before you paint the neighbouring one, even if that means working across the page in passes rather than finishing one house at a time.
No flower cart reference handy: a scatter of loose colour dots reads as flowers from a normal viewing distance, so do not overwork it. If you enjoy building a whole street like this, the gouache painting ideas for beginners list has more ways to keep flat colour clean.
Palette: Pale Pink,Soft Blue,Buttery Yellow,Leaf Green
After a street of houses, zoom right in on one object: a red phone box wrapped in ivy. Paint the box first as a simple tall rectangle with a domed top, in flat London red, leaving the window panes as a grid of thin cream or grey lines.
Once the box is dry, bring the ivy in from the base and one side in loose green shapes, letting a few leaves creep over the red so the box reads as half-reclaimed by the plant. Vary your greens, a darker racing green low down and a brighter leaf green higher up, so the ivy has depth without any blending.
The trap here is ivy that turns into a solid green blob with no box showing through. Keep at least two thirds of the red visible, and paint the ivy as separate leaf clusters rather than one continuous shape.
No deep racing green in your set: mix phthalo green with a touch of black to darken it without turning muddy. A toothbrush flick of dark green gouache gives a few stray ivy specks escaping onto the pavement.
You Will Need
- old toothbrush for splatter
Palette: London Red,Racing Green,Leaf Green,Cream
Here is where perspective starts to matter. A black cab parked outside a theater works best painted from a low eye level, so the cab looks close and the theater facade rises up tall behind it, lit by its own marquee.
Block the theater front first in a warm cream or gold with flat dark window shapes, then paint the cab as a rounded black shape sitting low in the frame, its windows picked out in pale grey. Add the marquee lights last as small dots or dashes of warm yellow against the dusk-toned sky.
Keep the cab’s roofline low and the theater’s doorway tall: that height difference is what sells the low eye level, so resist making the cab too big just because it is in front.
If pure black gouache looks flat and dead, mix a near-black from ultramarine and burnt umber instead, it keeps a little warmth. Today’s tip: paint the sky a touch darker than you think, dusk blue rather than daytime grey, and the marquee lights will glow far more convincingly.
Palette: Near Black,Warm Gold,Dusk Blue,Pale Grey
Move from a scene to a single figure: a palace guard standing in his red coat and tall bearskin hat. Pencil him centred and upright, treating the hat as one tall soft black shape and the coat as a simple red rectangle with a black belt line.
Paint the red coat first in one flat, confident layer, then the black trousers and boots, saving the bearskin hat for last since its texture needs the darkest value in the piece. A few short dry-brush strokes of black over a slightly lighter grey-black base give the hat a soft, furry edge without drawing every strand.
Guards painted too stiffly look like toy soldiers rather than travel-print characters. Soften that by giving the hat a very slightly uneven, textured edge rather than a perfectly smooth outline, and let one boot peek out a touch wider than the other.
No proper bearskin texture from dry brush alone: stipple a slightly lighter grey over the black with a nearly-dry round brush for a similar fuzzy effect.
Palette: London Red,Near Black,Soft Grey,Cream
Bring in a figure walking rather than standing still: a girl crossing Westminster Bridge under an umbrella, Big Ben rising softly behind her in the mist. Sketch her off-centre, one third in from the edge, with the bridge’s stone railing running in a gentle curve behind her.
Paint the misty background first in pale grey and soft blue, keeping Big Ben loose and slightly faded so it reads as distance. Then paint the girl boldly in front, her coat in one flat colour and her umbrella in a contrasting red or yellow, the brightest shape in the whole piece.
If she ends up the same tone as the misty background she disappears, which is the main way this one fails. Keep her coat and umbrella noticeably darker or brighter than everything behind her so she stays the clear focal point.
For speed, give her a plain dome umbrella and skip any ribs or pattern. No soft blue to hand, lighten ultramarine heavily with white gouache for a gentle London mist.
Palette: Soft Grey,Misty Blue,London Red,Charcoal
After a misty bridge, warm things back up with a tabletop scene: a tiered cake stand of afternoon tea on a hotel table, teapot and cup beside it. Lay the tablecloth in flat cream first, then build the tiered stand as three simple circles of decreasing size stacked on a thin central stem.
Paint the teapot and cup in racing green or soft pink to tie into the palette, then fill the tiers with loose dabs suggesting sandwiches, scones and tiny cakes, no need to paint each one in detail. A single pink rose in a small vase beside the stand finishes the arrangement.
Too much detail on every cake is the usual trap and it flattens the whole scene into clutter. Treat each tier as two or three confident shapes of colour rather than individual iced cakes, and let the eye fill in the rest.
No gold gouache for the stand’s trim, a thin white gel pen line over dry pale yellow paint does the same job. If still life appeals to you beyond this scene, the still life drawing ideas list has more tabletop approaches to try.
You Will Need
- white gel pen for fine details
Palette: Cream,Racing Green,Dusty Pink,Pale Yellow
From a quiet table, jump to performance energy: a busker playing violin in Covent Garden’s covered market, a small crowd of loose figures around him. Sketch the market’s iron columns and glass roof as a few simple curved lines first, then place the busker centred, violin raised, one leg stepped forward for movement.
Paint the market structure in pale grey and cream so it stays quiet and recedes, then build the busker in bolder colour, a dark coat and a warm wood-toned violin. The crowd behind him can be a handful of simple coat-shaped silhouettes in muted tones, just enough to suggest a gathering.
If the crowd figures get too detailed they pull focus from the busker, so keep every onlooker as a flat, simple silhouette with no faces. One raised foot and a slightly bent bow arm is enough to suggest motion without drawing a full action pose.
No violin reference at hand, a simple curved body shape with a thin dark neck reads convincingly from a normal viewing distance.
Palette: Warm Wood,Charcoal,Soft Grey,Cream
Duck indoors now for something cosier: a dark wooden pub corner, a pint on the table and a dog curled underneath it. Block the panelled wall and table in warm browns first, keeping the whole background low in value so the scene feels dim and snug.
Paint the pint glass next, a simple tall shape with a flat gold interior and a thin white foam line on top, then tuck the dog under the table as a soft curled shape in a warm brown or grey, just a loaf of a body with ears and a tail tip visible.
Too much detail on the dog’s fur fights with the flat style of everything else in this set, so keep it as two or three tones at most, a base colour and one shadow shape. A single white gouache dot for a highlight on the pint glass does more than a whole rendered reflection.
No gold gouache for the beer, mix yellow ochre with a touch of white and a little orange. If pubs and cosy corners are your thing, the cottagecore cottage paintings list leans into that same mood.
Palette: Warm Brown,Ochre Gold,Soft Grey,Cream Foam
Climb back outside for open space: a picnic blanket on Primrose Hill with the London skyline laid out below. Start with the skyline itself, a low band of simple flat building silhouettes in soft grey and cream along the horizon, kept small since the hill and sky take up most of the page.
Paint the grassy hill as a large sweep of green filling the lower half, then add the picnic blanket as a bold patterned rectangle, checked or striped in red and cream, sitting confidently in the foreground. A basket, a thermos and a couple of loose cushions finish the spread.
If the skyline gets too detailed it competes with the picnic for attention, so keep every building as one flat silhouette shape with no windows. The whole point of the eye level here is looking slightly down the hill, so keep the horizon line high in the frame, not centred.
No checked fabric pattern practice, two stripes of red on cream reads as a blanket just as well as a full grid.
Palette: Grass Green,London Red,Cream,Soft Grey
Here proportion carries the whole piece: a narrow Kensington mews lined with pastel cottage fronts and neat potted bay trees by each door. Before you paint, measure the width of one door against its own height with your pencil held at arm’s length, mews doors read as convincingly London only when they are tall and narrow, never square.
Paint the cobbled lane first in flat warm grey, then the house fronts in soft pastel blocks, pink, blue, pale green, each with a dark door and one neat potted bay tree, a simple ball of green on a thin trunk, standing beside it.
Trees that end up bigger than the doors beside them throw the whole scale off, so keep each bay tree no taller than the door handle. Repeat the same tree shape at every doorway, small variations in colour are enough to keep it feeling hand-painted rather than copied.
No cobblestone texture patience, a few short dashes of darker grey over the flat lane colour suggests cobbles without painting each stone.
Palette: Pale Pink,Soft Blue,Bay Green,Warm Grey
Perspective takes over completely for this one: a tube platform with a train arriving, the tiled walls and platform edge pulling toward a single point where the tunnel disappears. Draw a light horizon line at the rider’s eye level, then angle the platform edge and ceiling lines so they both converge there, the quickest way to fake real depth in a flat style.
Paint the curved tiled walls in cream and soft grey blocks first, keeping the tile lines simple and evenly spaced, then bring the train in from the tunnel mouth as a bold red or silver shape with round lit windows, its front end closest to the converging point and therefore largest.
Platforms painted flat, with no vanishing point at all, look like a wall rather than a tunnel, so always check that the tile lines actually meet rather than running parallel.
No ruler to hand for the converging lines, a straight edge of any card works just as well for the pencil stage.
You Will Need
- ruler or straight edge
Palette: Cream Tile,London Red,Soft Grey,Warm Yellow
Bring the mood back down to one small, warm subject: a corgi in a little yellow raincoat standing by a black lamp post. Sketch the lamp post first as a tall, slim vertical with a simple lantern top, then place the corgi at its base, short legs, long body, ears pricked up.
Paint the lamp post in flat black or deep racing green, then the corgi’s coat in warm tan with white patches, and finish with the raincoat as a bright flat yellow shape over its back, the one bold colour note in the piece.
Corgi proportions go wrong fastest at the legs, which read as too long the moment you draw them. Keep the legs short enough that the belly nearly grazes the ground, and the silhouette will read as corgi rather than generic dog.
No bright yellow in your set, mix cadmium yellow with a touch of white for a cheerful raincoat tone. For more pet-focused painting ideas beyond London, the farm animal watercolor ideas list has gentle animal approaches worth a look too.
Palette: Warm Tan,Bright Yellow,Near Black,Cream
Settle into a quieter scene after the corgi: a narrow bookshop front on Charing Cross Road, its window stacked with colourful spines. Paint the shopfront’s frame first in racing green or deep red, a tall narrow rectangle with a glass window taking up most of it.
Fill the window with rows of simple rectangle book spines in a mix of bright, varied colours, no need to paint titles or details, just enough colour variety to read as a packed shelf. Add the shop name on a painted sign above the window last, in a simple serif shape rather than legible lettering, since this is about the scene, not the words.
If every book spine is the same size and evenly spaced it reads as a barcode rather than a shelf, so vary the heights and group colours a little unevenly, the way real spines lean and jumble together.
No steady hand for straight shopfront lines, a torn strip of paper makes a quick straight edge to guide your brush.
Palette: Racing Green,London Red,Mixed Spine Colours,Cream
Here is the ten-minute and forty-minute version of the same idea: pedal boats on the Regent’s Park lake. For the quick version, paint one or two swan-shaped pedal boats as simple white curved shapes on a flat band of blue-green lake, with a soft green treeline behind, done in a handful of confident strokes.
For the longer version, add a second and third boat at different distances to suggest the lake stretching back, a few loose reflections in the water beneath each boat, and small figures seated inside, just dots of colour for heads and simple coat shapes for bodies.
Reflections painted as mirror-perfect copies of the boats above look stiff, so keep them looser and slightly broken, short horizontal dashes under each hull rather than a full upside-down boat.
No white gouache spare for the swan boats, leave the paper itself white and simply paint the water and trees around the shape.
Palette: Lake Blue Green,Leaf Green,White,Soft Grey
Return to architecture for a change of texture: a black and white Tudor-style shopfront with its timber beams and small leaded windows. Lay the cream or white wall colour first as one flat rectangle, then add the dark timber beams on top once dry, a grid of thick diagonal and vertical black lines.
Paint the small leaded windows as a tight grid of tiny dark diamonds or squares set into the frame, and finish with a hanging shop sign on a bracket at one side, painted in London red or racing green to match the rest of the set.
Timber beams painted too thin and too evenly spaced look like a modern grid rather than old Tudor framing, so vary the beam widths slightly and let a few angle diagonally across the corners.
No fine liner brush for the beam lines, the edge of a flat brush held on its side draws a clean straight line just as well.
Palette: Cream,Near Black,London Red,Racing Green
Keep things simple with one object after that timber detail: a striped deckchair set up on the grass in Hyde Park. Paint the canvas seat first as one curved flat shape, then lay even stripes of red and cream across it once dry, following the natural curve of the fabric rather than painting them straight.
Add the wooden frame last in warm brown, just a few thin crossed lines for the legs and arms, and finish with a patch of flat green grass underneath to ground the chair in the park.
Straight stripes on a curved chair look pasted on rather than painted, so let each stripe bend slightly to follow the seat’s curve, especially where the fabric dips in the middle.
No striped reference to work from, three or four evenly spaced stripes is plenty, there is no need to crowd the seat with more.
Palette: London Red,Cream,Warm Brown,Grass Green
Water returns, this time still and narrow: a brightly painted narrowboat moored on the Little Venice canal, potted plants along its roof. Paint the canal as a flat calm band first, then the boat as one long simple rectangle hull with a curved roofline, sitting low in the water.
Choose one bold colour for the hull, deep red or racing green, with a contrasting cream or white trim line along the top edge, then add a row of small potted plants along the roof as simple green dabs in terracotta pots.
A boat painted perfectly level on the water looks stiff, so let it sit very slightly lower at one end, as real narrowboats do, and add a thin wobbly reflection line beneath it to show the water’s surface.
No terracotta gouache for the pots, mix burnt sienna with a touch of white for a warm clay tone.
Palette: Racing Green,Cream Trim,Terracotta,Canal Blue
Zoom into one small character perched on something grand: a pigeon sitting on the back of one of the bronze lions in Trafalgar Square. Paint the lion first, kept large and solid, a flat bronze-grey shape with simple mane texture suggested by a few darker curved strokes rather than many small lines.
Once the lion is dry, add the pigeon on its back, a soft rounded grey body with a small head tucked slightly forward, feet barely visible against the lion’s spine. A hint of Nelson’s Column rising pale and narrow in the background places the scene without needing much detail at all.
If the pigeon is painted too small it gets lost against the bulk of the lion, so keep it a clear, confident size, roughly a third the height of the lion’s head, so it reads immediately as the focal detail.
No bronze-grey mixed already, combine burnt umber, a touch of green and white until you get a soft warm grey.
Palette: Bronze Grey,Soft Grey,Cream,Charcoal
After a grand lion, shrink right down to a quiet still life: a Harrods-style carrier bag resting against the leg of a cafe chair. Paint the bag first as one simple flat rectangle with folded top edges, in its recognisable deep green and gold, then the chair behind it in a thin wrought-iron black outline, kept loose and linear rather than solid.
A small coffee cup and saucer on the cafe table above finishes the scene, painted as two simple stacked ovals in white with a thin brown coffee line inside the cup.
Bags painted perfectly flat and symmetrical look stiff, so let one top corner fold over more than the other and allow the bag to lean slightly against the chair leg rather than standing perfectly upright.
No gold gouache for the lettering detail, a few dashes of a white gel pen on dry green paint reads just as well as a logo without copying it exactly.
You Will Need
- white gel pen for fine details
Palette: Deep Green,Warm Gold,Near Black,White
Stay with still life for one more round: a tea tin standing beside a woven picnic hamper, tied with ribbon. Paint the tin first as a simple tall cylinder in racing green or deep blue, with a thin gold band near the top and bottom to suggest its trim.
Build the hamper beside it as a rounded basket shape in warm woven browns, criss-crossed with a few darker lines to suggest wicker, then finish with a ribbon tied in a simple bow across the lid, in London red or cream.
Wicker baskets painted with too many individual lines turn fussy fast, so suggest the weave with just a handful of crossing strokes concentrated near the edges and leave the centre of the basket mostly flat.
No gold paint for the tin’s trim, a thin line of yellow ochre reads convincingly as gold from a normal viewing distance.
Palette: Racing Green,Warm Brown,Ochre Gold,London Red
Let the next scene breathe with almost no detail at all: a foggy morning on the Thames, a bridge and a few boat shapes fading into mist. Paint the sky and river as one continuous soft grey wash first, barely distinguishing where water ends and air begins.
Once dry, add the bridge’s silhouette in a slightly darker grey, keeping its far end deliberately faded so it seems to dissolve into the fog, then place one or two small dark boat shapes on the water, darkest in the foreground and almost invisible toward the back.
The temptation is to add too much detail to prove it is the Thames, but fog paintings work by taking detail away, not adding it, so resist adding windows, flags or texture to the bridge.
If this is your first time working with such a limited palette, mix one large batch of grey before you start and use it throughout, adjusting only its darkness rather than mixing a fresh grey each time.
Palette: Soft Grey,Misty Blue Grey,Charcoal,Cream
Bring a figure back in after that quiet fog: a girl in a belted trench coat walking with a coffee cup in hand. Sketch her mid-stride, one foot forward, coat falling in two or three simple flat panels rather than many small folds, and the coffee cup held at chest height.
Paint the coat first in cream or soft camel, then her hair and the coffee cup in warm browns, finishing with one bold accent, a red scarf or red shoes, the single pop of colour that ties her into the rest of the palette.
Coats painted with too many fold lines look busy and fight the flat style, so limit yourself to two or three confident shadow shapes along the coat’s edges and let the rest stay one flat colour.
No camel gouache mixed, combine yellow ochre with a touch of white and a little burnt umber for that classic trench coat tone.
Palette: Camel,Warm Brown,London Red,Cream
Turn the volume back up with Camden Lock’s row of brightly painted shopfronts along the canal. Block each shopfront as a flat rectangle of its own bold colour, purple, teal, orange, mustard, side by side along the page, before adding any window or sign detail.
Once the colour blocks are dry, add dark window and door shapes into each front, then a thin strip of canal water along the bottom of the page in blue-green to anchor the whole row and tie it to its lock-side setting.
If every shopfront is painted the same height the row looks like a colour chart rather than a street, so vary the rooflines slightly, one front a touch taller, another with a small gable, to keep it feeling like real buildings.
No four bold colours ready-mixed, start with just three strong ones and repeat one of them twice along the row, it still reads as a lively, varied street.
Palette: Teal,Mustard,Deep Purple,Canal Blue
Shift the eye level up high for this one: the dome of St Paul’s seen from a rooftop bar terrace, string lights crossing the foreground. Paint the dome itself first, a large soft grey curved shape sitting roughly at the centre of the page, with the cross on top as a tiny thin line.
Build the city rooftops below it as a low band of small flat shapes in warm grey and cream, then bring the terrace foreground in last, dark railing silhouettes and a loose string of small warm lights crossing the top of the frame.
Painting the dome too small against a huge sky wastes the whole point of this high viewpoint, so let the dome take up a generous portion of the page, with the sky kept to a narrow cream or dusk-coloured band above it.
No fine brush for the string lights, dot them in with the tip of a cotton bud dipped in warm yellow gouache.
You Will Need
- cotton bud for dotting
Palette: Soft Grey,Warm Cream,Near Black,Warm Yellow Light
Return to something tiny and still after that big skyline view: a single glass milk bottle sitting on a doorstep beside an emerald door. Paint the door first as a tall flat rectangle filling most of the background, then the step as a thin pale stone ledge beneath it.
Add the milk bottle last, a simple tall glass shape with a foil cap, left mostly as untouched white paper or a very pale wash so it reads as glass against the darker door and step around it.
If the bottle is painted fully white with no shading at all it looks flat and paper-thin, so add one thin vertical shadow line down one side using a pale grey-blue to suggest the curve of the glass.
No pale grey-blue mixed, a touch of soft blue gouache thinned heavily with water does the same job.
Palette: Emerald Green,Pale Stone,White,Pale Blue Grey
Climb onto the rooftops next, a cluster of terracotta chimney pots with a cat picking its way along the ridge between them. Paint the rooftop slope first as one flat band of warm grey or slate, then the chimney stack rising from it, a simple rectangle topped with three or four small cylindrical pots.
Add the cat last, walking along the ridge tile, a simple curved silhouette with a raised tail for balance, in a solid dark colour so it reads clearly against the paler slate roof below.
Chimney pots that are all drawn the same height and spacing look mechanical, so vary their heights slightly and let one lean a touch, the small imperfection that makes a rooftop feel real rather than drafted.
No terracotta gouache mixed for the pots, combine burnt sienna with a small amount of white to lighten it to that warm clay tone.
Palette: Slate Grey,Terracotta,Near Black,Pale Sky
Bring the sun fully out for this one: the round, timbered Globe Theater under a clear sky, its open roof and flags catching the light. Paint the drum-shaped building first as a flat cream cylinder wrapped in dark timber lines, keeping the curve simple rather than fussing over every beam.
Add the thatched roof ring around the top edge in warm straw tones, then finish with a couple of small flags on top in London red, flying out to one side to suggest a breeze.
Painted under flat, even light the building loses its roundness, so add one side of the drum shape a touch darker than the other, the simplest way to suggest the curve catching the sun from one direction.
No straw-coloured gouache mixed, yellow ochre lightened with white gives the same warm thatch tone.
Palette: Cream,Near Black,Straw,London Red
Keep it simple again with one small, friendly object: a red post box with a letter halfway into its slot. Paint the box first as a tall rounded cylinder shape in flat London red, with the crown emblem suggested by a tiny simple shape rather than fine detail.
Add the dark slot opening near the top, then the letter itself, a small white rectangle tilted at an angle as though caught mid-post, half in and half still visible.
Post boxes painted perfectly cylindrical with no shading look flat against the page, so add one soft shadow down the right or left side using a slightly darker red, just enough to round the shape without fussing over it.
No darker red mixed for shading, add a small touch of the near-black you likely already have for other ideas in this list.
Palette: London Red,Deep Red Shadow,White,Cream
Step back out to a wider view: a quiet garden square enclosed by black iron railings, trees and a bench inside. Paint the greenery first as a soft rounded mass filling most of the square, a mix of two or three greens so it does not read as one flat blob.
Once dry, add the black iron railings around the edge as a repeated pattern of simple thin vertical lines with small curled tops, running along the front of the page like a fence holding the whole garden in.
Railings painted freehand tend to drift wider apart as you go, so mark a few light pencil ticks at even intervals before painting to keep the spacing consistent across the whole row.
No fine brush steady enough for thin railing lines, the edge of an old gift card dipped in black gouache drags a clean straight line.
Palette: Leaf Green,Deep Green,Near Black,Cream
Give one single door its own spotlight: a tall emerald Georgian front door with a brass knocker and a fan window above. Paint the door itself first as one confident flat rectangle, then the surrounding white or cream stucco frame around it, kept simple and geometric.
Add the fan-shaped window above the door in soft grey segments, then finish with the brass knocker and letterbox as two small gold dots and a thin gold rectangle, the only warm accents against all that green and white.
Doors painted without any surrounding frame float oddly on the page, so always give the door a surrounding stucco border, even a narrow one, so it reads as part of a building rather than a cut-out shape.
No gold gouache for the knocker, a dot of yellow ochre with a tiny highlight of white gel pen reads just as well.
You Will Need
- white gel pen for fine details
Palette: Emerald Green,White Stucco,Warm Gold,Soft Grey
Close the set with a gentle finish: a girl crouched by the water in St James’s Park, feeding a small group of ducks. Sketch her first, kneeling or crouched low at the water’s edge, coat in one flat colour, arm extended slightly with a scattering of small bread crumb dots below her hand.
Paint the water next as a calm band behind her, then the ducks as a handful of simple rounded shapes in brown and cream, gathered close to where her hand reaches, some facing her and one or two turned away for variety.
Ducks painted all in a tidy identical row look stiff and repeated, so cluster them a little unevenly, overlapping slightly, with beaks pointing in two or three different directions.
No brown and cream duck colours mixed separately, one base brown lightened with white for half the ducks keeps the palette simple while still giving variety. For another gentle bird and animal mix to try next, the flamingo watercolor ideas list has a similarly warm, friendly approach.
Palette: Warm Brown,Cream,Soft Blue Water,London Red
What to Do Next
Pick whichever idea you are itching to paint first, pin this list for the rest, and set up on a sheet of heavyweight paper with your reds, greens and cream mixed before you begin. One finished London scene today is plenty; the next one will be waiting on this list tomorrow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What paper works best for a london painting in gouache?
A heavyweight paper of at least 300gsm works best, since gouache sits as opaque flat layers and thinner paper will buckle. A smooth or lightly textured surface keeps the crisp, graphic edges this travel-print style depends on.
How do I keep gouache colours looking flat and graphic instead of streaky?
Mix enough paint before you start so you never run out mid-shape, and load the brush generously rather than scrubbing thin layers back and forth. Work each flat area in one or two confident passes and let it dry before adding detail on top.
Do I need to draw London landmarks accurately to get a good result?
No, exact architectural accuracy matters far less than clean shapes and confident colour. These travel-print scenes read as London through colour choices like red and racing green, familiar silhouettes, and a few recognisable details, not through precise proportions.
What is the easiest London painting idea to start with?
The red bus passing Big Ben or the ivy-covered phone box make the simplest starting points, since both rely on one or two bold shapes and flat colour. Save the tube platform or Primrose Hill skyline for once you feel more confident with perspective.
Can I paint these London scenes with watercolor instead of gouache?
Yes, though the flat, poster-like look will soften into washes rather than crisp blocks of colour. Build up watercolor in layers for opacity, or add a little white gouache on top for small highlights like window lights or a milk bottle’s shine.