Using an HB pencil, draw the basic shapes and the distant tree line then with a dilute cobalt blue acrylic wash cover the whole canvas.

With much less dilute cobalt acrylic indicate the tonal values, and wipe out the strongest highlights.

1. Paint the sky using the larger Artisan brushes and mixes of cobalt blue and titanium white – slightly darker in the top left then lightening as you work over to the right.
2. Above the distant town (Nice), warm the mix a little with alizarin crimson as you near the lowest area of sky over the mountains.
3. Paint the clouds using the Artisan large Rounds and filbert brushes by scumbling over the underlying blue of the sky using mixes of white, with a very little cobalt blue, and a tiny touch of raw umber for the more shadowy areas.
4. Next, paint the mountains, mixed from a little cobalt blue, a tiny touch of alizarin crimson and titanium white. Then go back over them, adding darker suggestions of detail.

1. Use small, suggestive marks with the Rosemary & Co small, square Ivory brushes to indicate the town below the mountains.
2. The colours needed are raw sienna, raw umber, burnt sienna with a touch of cadmium red pale, all lightened with white touched into the base of the mountains.

1. Paint the middle distant town of Antibes using the same colour combinations as the distant town of Nice, making the colours a little stronger and more saturated, using the same Rosemary & Co square brushes, which are ideal for these basically rectangular shapes.
2. Paint the roofs using mixes of cadmium red pale and burnt sienna with touches of white.
3. Paint the windows and doorways with pale shades of Payne’s grey and white.

1. Add a little cobalt blue to the pale colours of the walls that are in shadow.
2. Paint the seawalls with shades of raw umber, raw sienna and titanium white. For the strong shadow areas add a little cobalt blue and raw umber, which will be intensified a little later in the process.
3. Using phthalo blue (red shade) with a little cobalt blue and titanium white block in the base colour of the sea; again, this will be built up gradually.
4. With a mix of cobalt blue and cadmium yellow pale paint the little patches of vegetation growing on the walls and the trees in the town.

1. Extend the seawall to the left adding a little cobalt blue in the shadow areas.
2. Using combinations of the same colours used in the seawalls, start to block in the rocks along the base of the seawall, looking out for areas where you can accentuate light rocks against dark areas behind, and dark rocks against lighter areas of background. In this way you can show the separation of nearer objects from more distant ones.
3. Using mixes of phthalo blue, cobalt blue and titanium white with some darkened with a little Payne’s grey, block in a mid-tone for the base colour of the surface of the sea.
4. Using varying shades of the same base colours start laying in the marks on the surface of the sea. These marks need to be short and narrow in the distance and, while working in the distance, paint a few suggestions of pleasure craft in off-white, a pale blue-grey.
5. With the same mix, using the Ivory Rigger lay in the very fine suggestion of surf breaking along the shore along Nice front.

1. Look for, and approximate, the wavelets on the surface of the sea. For this use the small Round brush and Rigger to paint, what appear as elongated diamond shapes, in shades darker than the surface of the sea. These are the shadow sides of the waves.
2. Add some of the wave shapes in the light blue-grey for the lighter aspects of the waves.
3. Paint the foam using a mix of white with a touch of blue-grey. Pure white highlights rarely occur, but can be added in the final stages if needed.
4. Add lines of foam along the edges of the fingers of rocks sticking out into the sea. The final touches on the sea will be finished at a later stage.

1. Continue to paint the seaward side of the seawall using the same colours as before, adding more rocks to the foreshore.
2. Bring the defensive wall around to behind the hedges and trees again using a little cobalt blue in with the stone colours to cool the colours where they are in shadow.
3. Suggest buildings behind the trees on the far left-hand side using colours used to paint the town of Antibes and the small square brushes once again.
4. Using base shadow colours mixed from Payne’s grey, cadmium yellow pale and raw umber, block in the deepest shadow greens of the trees and shrubs on the left, going around some of the more important figures. Then put in highlighting with shades of lighter greens mixed from cadmium yellow pale, cobalt blue, and a little white here and there, with slightly earthier greens mixed with the addition of a little raw sienna.
5. Block the background trees in shadow using the Round brushes. The palm fronds are painted with the Rigger brush.
6. Finally, add dark lines to suggest the dark trunks and branches mixed from raw umber and cobalt blue with the lighter trunks and branches created using mostly white with the addition of a little raw umber.

1. The foreground esplanade comprises a flat, compact, fine grit area, the perfect playing surface for pétanque or boules – and what a fantastic backdrop. The colour combinations used for this were Naples yellow, a beautiful pale, buttery yellow, raw sienna and titanium white for the more distant ground.
2. In the foreground add a little more raw sienna with just a hint of burnt sienna to warm it a little more, and finish the brushstrokes in smooth horizontal strokes.
3. Using the same colour combinations paint the landward side of the seawall and use a much paler version with a little raw umber added for the flat top of the wall.
4. Paint the green seaweed on the rocks with a mix of cadmium yellow pale, cobalt blue, a touch of raw umber and quite a lot of white.

1. Bearing the top tips below in mind, add in the figures. Start by painting a small head-shaped mark; for most of these use a pale raw sienna, raw umber and titanium white mix. Then paint the upper bodies.
2. The little boules are painted with a pale mix of Payne’s grey and titanium white and spotted on with the point of a Round brush.

1. The shadows of the trees in the foreground run across from left to right and all the figures are casting shadows to their right; obviously this is very important to keep consistent throughout. The method of painting the shadows is to mix a glaze; think of this as a tinted varnish.
2. For this use ultramarine blue with a little burnt sienna and alizarin crimson thinned down with quite a bit of painting medium.
3. You can use the Artisan painting medium for this, or, as I did, I mixed 50:50 Artisan safflower oil to Artisan thinner, which makes a lovely clear glaze.
4. The beauty of doing shadows this way is that you treat all the painting as if there were no shadows; the shadow is then painted on the ground or object, wall or house, allowing the underpainting to show through, just as a real shadow is cast onto whatever is behind it.
5. Add the shadows of the palm trees and strengthen the shadows on the seawalls and houses. Finally, add a little more foam around some of the closer rocks in the sea and sign it on a shadow using the lightest colour used in the sandy playing surface.

The finished painting

Les Joueurs de Boules, Antibes, water-mixable oil on stretched canvas, (35.5x91.5cm)

About Murray Ince

Murray is the founder member of the Society of Painters in Water-Mixable Oils.

Visit his website murrayince.com.

Find out more about SPWMO by visiting www.spwmo.org.uk

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