Leisure Painter - UK (2019 - Summer)

http://www.painters-online.co.uk SUMMER 2019 29

perhaps invest in Artists’ quality rather

than Student watercolours.

A limited palette

I enjoy painting en plein airand for that

I try to carry as few colours as possible,

often limiting them to a maximum of

three primaries: red, blue and yellow.

For years my choice of colours were

alizarin crimson, French ultramarine

blue and cadmium yellow. I found these

colours limiting, especially when mixing

red and blue to create violets; the

resultant colours came out looking very

brown. The greens I mixed from yellow

and blue appeared flat and uninteresting.

The oranges were satisfactory, but not as

vibrant as I would have liked.

When working with these colours in

the studio, I found myself compensating

for the mixing limitations by substituting

tubes of premixed colours, such as

cadmium orange and magenta. This had

the disadvantage of making my

collection of colours start to grow too

large. I also think that mixing secondary

colours from primaries gives far more

satisfactory results than using premixed

colours.

After a few years of experimenting, I

found that the best combination of

colours was French ultramarine blue,

primary yellow and French vermilion.

All these colours work well together and

I can produce really good secondary

colours from them: bright oranges,

pleasant violets and a range of greens.

French vermilion

Over the years Sennelier’s French

vermilion has become a big favourite

of mine. This colour is descended from

one of the first bright reds, cinnabar.

The pigment was highly valued and

extensively traded, especially around the

Mediterranean area. The colour was later

produced synthetically and was known

as vermilion. One disadvantage of this

earlier pigment meant the colour would

darken significantly when exposed to

light and atmosphere. The Sennelier

watercolour has had all the original

pigment replaced with a much more

reliable and stable pigment, called

sandorin scarlet.

As with all Sennelier watercolours, the

paint consistency is quite runny, which

allows you to mix, blend and lift the

colour with ease. Honey is added to the

paint to enhance brilliance and increase

luminosity; it also acts as a preservative

for the paint. The consistency is ideal to

create strong and colourful washes when

painting. The colour is quite opaque so

by mixing with primary yellow I achieve

good covering power over previous

work. When diluting right back then

mixing with French ultramarine blue, the

mix becomes more transparent and can

be applied as a shadow wash over

previously applied colour.

I like the fact that the vermilion

pigment stays as an intense red even

after numerous layers of watercolour

are applied.

Painting outdoors

The painting, The High Street, Stratford

upon Avon(above) is a sketch I

completed on a visit to the town.

The high street is a busy place, but

I managed to perch on a seat out of

the way and completed the drawing

very rapidly on watercolour paper in

a Sennelier Grand Livre watercolour

sketchbook using a Faber-Castell Pitt

artist fine black fibre-tipped pen. I

placed the figures on the pavement in

relation to each other by first drawing

the heads and shoulders before

completing the rest of the bodies.

I squeezed out French vermilion,

primary yellow, French ultramarine blue

on to the palette and began painting the

sky. Primary yellow mixed with vermilion

was added first, into which I blended

diluted French ultramarine blue. Adding

a little red to the yellow mix avoided a

green sky when the colour contacted the

blue. I then mixed brown by adding a

little blue to a mix of red and yellow

and used this wash to paint the rooftops.

Washes of blue and red were used to

describe the shadows and the shape

of the building façades and roadway.

Finally, I added stronger colour into the

bodies of the passing pedestrians with

a touch of pure vermilion to the person

standing next to the A-board.

Primary yellow was added to the

roadway for the yellow lines then mixed

with blue for the awning and hanging

baskets. t

High Street, Stratford upon Avon, Sennelier watercolour on Sennelier 140lb Rough watercolour paper, 8x10in. (20x25.5cm)

t

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