This particular type of fishing is a skill that was borne out of necessity by fishermen in Sri Lanka. Balancing on a stilt and fishing at the same time – incredible.

I drew in the figures, with a very heavy pencil pressure. The reason for this was that I was going to paint in the background first and add the silhouettes afterwards.

For the sky: a gamboge yellow wash, a range of oranges and a maroon to paint in the dark red clouds at the top of the sky. I used a variety of brushstrokes, and brushes. I worked wet on wet, my yellow wash first and then using different brush pressures I added the range of orange colours I had mixed. Let some colours in a sky intermingle and the resulting effects you can achieve are extremely effective. Do not rush this process of painting a sky, the paper will not dry out if you have applied enough water to soak into the paper.

I then painted in the body of water. I used a horizontal brushstroke throughout, one of the methods of painting a body of water, which suggests still rather than fast moving water. I used the palette I used for the sky, but added a perylene blue, which has a green hue.

I let the paper dry out completely, and completed the rest of the painting in a class that evening.

I mixed a chromatic black for the figures, stilts and fishing rods. Once I had painted in the figures I thought they did not contrast enough with the background as my chromatic colour had a brown bias. So I applied a layer of black to the silhouettes.