This painting is a demonstration which I did last week at Cupar Art Club. I arrived with a prepared underpainting in watercolour. I talked through why I had prepared a watercolour underpainting in complementary colours. I then proceeded to apply the local colour of the scene leaving some of the underpainting to show through. This had the effect of making the colours sing and can lead to a more realistic looking painting. Multiple colours working together can give a greater sense of reality. Degas was aware of these techniques and experimented with a variety of undertones and underpainting techniques to get the effect he was after. It was useful to have my home made colour wheel at hand as shown above.