Hello, my name is Dieter and I live in Duesseldorf on the Rhine, Germany. I started to draw and use watercolors 2 years ago (when I was 40 years old). I read a lot of books about watercolors (at the present time Wendon Blake, Landscapes in watercolour), try to practice as often as I can and to attend one or two courses per year.

Last sunday I tried to paint the Basilica of Gerresheim (in the northern area of Duesseldorf) as seen from our city park. Actually one only sees the top of the building. I think I spent 2 hours in the park and another 2 or three hours at home to complete the painting.

It is a watercolor painting, size 26 x 36 cm in size.

• The chapel is well located. You didn't place it in the center. That was well thought out.
• The painting was simplified. You didn't clutter it with a lot of detail. It's very easy to spoil a painting by putting in too much detail.

I felt that the sky, which took up a great deal of space, was lacking interest. I took the freedom to make it into a late afternoon sunset. The play of gray blue rain clouds and the warm colors in the clouds make this area more interesting now.

I also changed some of the greens in the trees. Be careful of monotonous greens in foliage. I advice you not to use premixed green as a base color from which to make your greens but rather use pthalo blue and all yellows, ochres, and oranges to mix your greens. This way you will get many varieties of greens which range from brownish greens, blue greens to yellow greens.

This painting was done in watercolor. Take advantage of this medium by painting wet on wet. As a result you will get glorious diffused edges. Foliage looks great when painted in this technique.

Most trees are predominantly dark in value as well.

The right side of the building was put in shadow to add volume.

If you look carefully most windows are a dark gray purple instead of black.

One of your trees grew right under the eavesdrop of the front building. Somehow that looked awkward to me so I put the building behind the tree.

Watch out for pictorial balance. You had a lot of weight in the bottom portion. I compensated this by adding the heavy cloud in the top right corner. If you turn your original painting upside down, you will see what I'm talking about (see the image to the left/bottom).

Most landscapes are more successful when you have three planes (without counting the sky); foreground, middle ground and background. Here we are missing the background. Probably a distant mountain would enhance this even if it doesn't exist in your real life scene but I didn't want to redo your original art piece.