The Village Tank at Four O'Clock
A candidate who uses a wheelchair is placed, with permission, at a fixed raised viewpoint for the nature and landscape paper: 2 hours 45 minutes on a quarter-imperial sheet in watercolour. The subject is a village tank at about four in the afternoon: bare mud foreground, the near bank, two palms and a small temple spire on the far bank, three buffalo standing in shallow water, and a sky of scattered cloud. Working seated with the board tilted about 30 degrees, the candidate produces a picture in which the temple spire is as dark and as sharply edged as the foreground palms; the reflection in the tank is painted as vertical stripes in the same green and ochre used for the palms and bank; the sky is a flat even wash; the horizon cuts the sheet exactly in half; and every wash has run down the sheet, leaving tide marks across the lower third. The candidate says the drawing looks like a map, not a place.
1. The candidate's diagnosis is correct. Name the depth cues that are missing and explain how each should be rebuilt, with the specific changes you would make to the temple, the palms and the mud.
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The picture is flat because every part carries the same contrast, the same edge quality and the same saturation. Depth is a gradient, not a set of objects.
- Value. Contrast decreases with distance. The temple on the far bank should sit within two or three tones of the sky value just above it; only the foreground mud may carry the darkest dark and the lightest light. Palace the temple by lightening it and reducing its internal darks.
- Edge. Near edges are hard, far edges are soft or lost. The near palm's fronds may be drawn individually; the far palm should be a single silhouette with two or three notches. Let the temple's base merge into the bank.
- Saturation and hue. Distance cools and dulls. Mix a separate far-bank puddle with a little of the sky blue and grey in it; ban the strongest green and ochre from anything beyond the near bank.
- Size and overlap. The near palm should overlap the temple, and the buffalo should overlap the far bank so that the bank continues behind them.
- Texture. Marks become smaller and fewer with distance: no mud texture on the far bank, no individual leaves on the far palm.
Practical rule for the candidate: mix three puddles before starting (far, middle, near) and keep the strongest pigment until the foreground is reached. That single discipline produces most of the depth.
2. The reflections are painted as vertical stripes of the objects' own colours. Explain what is wrong and how the tank should be rebuilt, including how the buffalo and the far bank should behave in the water.
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A reflection is a mirror about the waterline, seen through moving water, not a set of coloured columns.
- Geometry. Every reflected object sits directly below itself, inverted, and touches the waterline at exactly the point where the object meets it. The temple's reflection therefore aligns with the temple and is the same width at the waterline, narrowing as it goes down.
- Value. The reflection is always darker and lower in contrast than the object, because water absorbs light and the surface simultaneously reflects the sky. So the reflection of the palms is a deep, muted green-grey, not the palm's green.
- Saturation and hue. The reflection shifts towards the water's own colour; at four in the afternoon that is a cool grey-blue. Mix each reflection from the object colour plus the water colour, never from the object colour alone.
- Break-up. Ripples displace the image sideways in horizontal bands. Paint the reflection as short horizontal strokes of varying length, with the bands wider near the viewer, and leave occasional gaps where the sky is caught.
- Only what touches the water reflects. The far bank gives a narrow band, roughly a third of its own height, because it is far away and seen at a shallow angle. The buffalo are the exception: their legs are in the water, so they break the surface and their reflections start at their bellies, interrupted by dark verticals where the legs enter, with a light halo where the water is displaced.
The test is simple: hold the sheet up and check that each reflection lies directly beneath its object.
3. The board is tilted about 30 degrees and the washes are running. Decide what to change in the working method and where the horizon should finally sit, with reasons.
Read the worked answer
The tilt. Thirty degrees is a drying angle, not a painting angle. Water runs downhill faster than the pigment can settle, which is why every wash ends in a tide mark. Two workable options:
- Reduce the tilt to 10-15 degrees for the whole sheet, and work flat for the sky, tilting only to dry.
- Keep the tilt but control the bead: load the brush less, work in bands from top to bottom, and at the end of every band touch the collecting bead with a thirsty brush or a tissue corner to lift it before it dries.
Because the candidate is seated with restricted reach, the board should also be brought closer and its angle set once, at the start, so the arm does not have to be re-organised for each band. Complete one area before starting the next, and never return into a drying wash.
The horizon. A line exactly through the centre splits the sheet into two equal halves and stops the eye. Decide from the subject: here the tank, its reflections and the buffalo are the interest, so the far bank should sit about two-thirds up the sheet, giving roughly two-thirds of the area to water and foreground. That also puts the temple and palms in the upper third, where they can be overlapped by the near palm without fighting the centre. Move it now, while the washes are still workable, by lifting the far bank with a damp sponge and re-establishing it higher.