This is a well known sight at Eastern University - a very picturesque college campus that my daughter Emily attended. It was the day of her graduation in May and it was a bright sunny morning. Below is how I painted it. (I am going to take another picture of this as I took it at night and don't like the tones of green...they are not too correct....the other photos are more accurate)
I started with some of the background because I wanted to establish some darks and light greens. I used new gamboge and cobalt blue for the greens in different ratios. More yellow in some and more blue in others. I intermingled the two contrasting green in the distant bushes.
I didn't make the background grasses too dark at first but put an initial layer of the greens and did some drybrush in the foreground to indicate some light areas in the grass. Careful not to get too detailed and just indicated some grass near the edges and along the lilies. I painted the watermill with an initial layer of yellow ochre and then some areas mixed with cobalt blue to make a dull green. Burnt sienna was used in some stones on the building and the darks were made with ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. The building is in shadow and I glazed it later on. The waterwheel itself is dark....I used ultramarine and alizarin with burnt sienna. I tried to indicate water coming down and I ended up scaping some highlights. The roof is kind of tricky and I don't know if I like the results. I saw lots of violets and clay colors in the photo and tried to get those colors. I used permanent rose and burnt sienna but I would probably glaze it first with a violet and then go back with the rose....if I were to do it over. The violet I would use cobalt blue and perm. rose. It's bright, but would eventually tone it down.