Talk about getting distracted!! I blame Uma!! I felt I needed to reduce the number of pigments used in this painting. She wrote a really interesting article about that. And then I just went down the rabbit hole! But what fun it was.
So, two or three things to say, in no particular order:
- Limiting the number of colours you use in any painting is important. The fewer the pigments, the more unity and harmony.
- Sap Green is not a colour I normally use. It's very bright. It spreads into everything else if you're painting wet in wet. And it's made of three pigments ((PO48, PY150, PG7). It's really brash. But when you're painting an Irish landscape, it can be useful, mixed with a bit of blue, or a bit of yellow, and a touch of burnt sienna.
- There are a lot of resources about colour mixing in watercolours. My advice is simply to do lots of mixing charts, so you get to know your colours. If you have lots of time, just enjoy playing with colours. But be prepared to put in lots of hours to figure out what happens when you mix a+b+c+d+e!! If you don't have time, limit your palette. Good advice from Uma Kelkar here. And check out Shari Blaukopf's book too
- Triads are good. But remember to not have the same amount of a, b, and c in your painting. Think Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear, Baby Bear (I read that in a book about painting in watercolours a long time ago, "Powerful Watercolor Landscapes", by Catherine Gill)
- Colourful darks are important
- Mixing on the page is more dynamic than mixing in the palette.
- Rainbow caterpillars are always fun.
- Different people like different things. What other people like might not work for you. I still don't like Indigo, Sepia or Paynes Grey, despite the fact that I know these colours work wonders for other urban sketchers. They just don't make me happy. Caput Mortuum, on the other hand, it has something that makes me smile! And Carbazole Violet!! Talk about strong!!
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