I have always had a passion for trains, as my father was a train driver. He would often take me to the sheds to look at them and I was allowed to climb into the cabin as a child, which was always exciting.

The train I have chosen to paint lives at Bowes Railway Museum in the North East of England . The smell of the steam always takes me back to my childhood days with dad.

I chose a Hot Press watercolour paper of 140 lbs weight as there is much detail in this train and HP paper is the best paper for any detailed work because of its smoothness. Paper of 140lbs weight does not need stretching and will not buckle, unless you really flood it with water, which we will not be doing. Any painting which needs to have a lot of water applied would best be suited to 300lbs paper, which is very thick and unlikely to buckle.

The train could also have been done on NOT paper (not hot pressed) or indeed Rough paper but both have much more tooth - the Rough having the most and more suited to landscape painting. The choice of paper is a personal one so try different papers and see what suits your style best.

Select your reference photos as you can never have too many around you. Doing this gives you the opportunity to study your subject from many different angles and greatly assists your three-dimensional understand of your subject. Getting the detail correct is very important, because others will know this engine better than you.

I used artist watercolour throughout as artist quality ensures the painting will last a very long time and not fade if kept out of direct sunlight. I would advise you always to buy the best quality materials you can afford because while student quality materials have their place they do not contain the quantity or quality of pigment that artist paint does and will therefore not last as long as artist quality.

I began by drawing the train very carefully onto tracing paper with a half-inch grid (0.5) grid underneath. The painting was to be only 7 x 9 inches and since it has many small details that I needed to get right I preferred this method of drawing it out. The initial drawing took quite a while because of the detail work. Please take your time at this stage because if the initial drawing fails the final painting fails too!

Decide on your colours and mix enough paint to make sure you won't run out of any as it is very difficult sometimes to re-mix that colour exactly , unless you have made a note of the colours you used. Have your brushes ready. I used mainly detail brushes as many of the parts of the train are so small. Also have two jars of clean water: one for rinsing the brush, and the other to make sure all the old paint is out before mixing a new colour. Remember to have some paper towel or cloth handy to wipe excess paint and water from your brush. You'll also need a piece of the same watercolour paper to test out your chosen mixed colours before you commit them to your painting. Once you have everything to hand it's time to begin painting.

1. Having drawn the guidelines for your train, mask out any white areas, like the lettering, with frisket. I used a 0.3 round brush to do that on this piece, as the lettering is so small.

2. I decided I wanted the sky to be pale against the dark of the train so I mixed a weak solution of cobalt blue. I wetted the sky area with clean water and waited until the sheen went off. I re-wetted the sky again with clean water and again waited until he sheen went off. The reason for this is so the sizing on the paper is loosened and the paint will be better absorbed into the paper. I then painted the area with the ready-made cobalt blue, using a flat number 6 brush. I then let it dry thoroughly. Always remember to let each stage of every painting dry thoroughly before going onto the next stage, as this ensures the paint won't mix and blend on wet paper and become muddied.
3. I had to decide on a background, as the real train yard has a car park behind the train - which I didn't want. Thinking of the colours I was about to use, I decided on a green area to represent a field with some distant trees. The reason for this was because the light green would contrast against the dark of the train and is the complimentary colour to red which will be used later in the train.
4. The green was mixed with the same cobalt blue I used for the sky, with a touch of lemon yellow added. Rather than have a flat green in the field area, I added a touch of burnt umber for contrast. The trees are a weak mix of cobalt blue and lemon yellow.

1. To paint the train I mixed a black from the three primary colours with the emphasis on blue.
2. I mixed three puddles of the above in different strengths from weak to heavy, almost black.
3. The train was then painted in many layers to get the different tonal values.
4. Always dry thoroughly between layers.

Some subjects, such as flowers, trees, grasses and backgrounds work very well by allowing the colours to mix and blend on wet paper, see my Gentlemen Farmers, Durham Cricketers and Morning Glories where the paint has been applied to wet paper for the trees, grasses and background allowing several different puddles of colours to mix and blend. A word of caution here - in the above named paintings I mixed my colours using only two colours together at a time for the greens but made several puddles each made with different blues and yellows to get the different shades/tonal values of greens I wanted before applying to wet paper and letting them mix together. Mud in paintings happens when you mix four or more colours together or allow that to happen on your paper. If this is the effect you want that is fine otherwise try never to mix more than three colours together to avoid making mud.

1. The smoke was added with a very weak wash of the train colour while the steam near the bottom of the train, beneath the driver, was added by lifting some of the paint out.
2. The driver's overalls were brightened a little and the writing was painted in Cadmium Yellow.
3. The red lines of the train was painted on with a detail brush.
4. The ground is a mixture of all the colours used.