Choosing the Right Colors

I bought myself a new set of Derwent Drawing Pencils.  The natural colors and high quality are what drew me to them (and the fact they were on sale).  I've been looking for more colors from nature.  I always seem to reach for colors that aren't in my box of pencils.

The day they arrived, I got out white and tan paper and swatched the set, noting in my mind where I had seen each color out in nature: the earthy red of the blueberry twigs, the olive green of winter grass, and the sage green of lichens on fallen branches.  Everywhere I walked, I saw the colors of these pencils repeated in nature.

Overall, these colors are more muted than most of my colored pencils. 

Here's a close up photo of blueberry twigs, a lovely match for the autumn red pencil.

And here's my sketch of the twig and some opossum tracks in the snow.

Opossum tracks always charm me with the little thumb sticking out at an odd angle.

I stopped by my neighbor's house, and got to meet her charming horse, Axle.

The earth tones --woodland, chocolate, apricot & ruby earth-- mixed with white and black expressed the wintry scene and beautiful Axle.

When I can't find the exact right match for a color in my kit, I look for two or more pencils that come close and mix them by coloring one over the other(s).  

Repeat this process until you get the color you're looking for. I mixed Prismacolors in poppy red, Tuscan red, Crimson red & white to try to match Derwent's autumn red (the color at the very bottom). 

When you feel like you want to create but don't have the energy or time for a full drawing, swatching the colors you see is a great exercise.  Simply pick a couple of colors you see around you or in a photo, and try to replicate them with your colored pencils.  

A perfect match is not the goal! 

Exploring is.  

Experimenting with colors will move you ahead in your observational drawing skills.  You will begin to notice nuances in the colors you see around you.

Happy Creating!

The World is Full of Greens!

This is the time of year when you might feel inspired to go outdoors to paint.  Once outside, you may wonder, "How do I make all of those greens?!"

Consider creating your own library of greens like the one above.

I have a small palette for outdoor painting adventures.  It contains:

Ultramarine Blue (warm) & Phthalo Blue (cool).

Azo Yellow (warm) & Winsor Lemon Yellow (cool).

Yellow Ochre & Burnt Sienna (warm earth tones).

Look at the wide array of greens above I can make with those colors!

I paired each of my blues with each of my yellows.  I painted a swatch of the blue at one end, and painted the rest of the band in yellow.  Then I made a puddle of the yellow in my mixing tray, and began adding dabs of blue.  After each dab of blue, I swatched the green onto the spectrum, so the greens get progressively more blue going to the right.

I also mixed Phthalo Blue with Burnt Sienna to create a rich, pine green.

Give this a try! You'll end up with a great reference sheet of greens you can mix to paint your next sketch or painting.

Out on Raccoon Creek State Park Lake, painting the morning sun shining through the trees, my experience mixing colors came in handy.

Happy Creating!

Baltimore Orioles & Mixing Greens in My Nature Journal

A hike down to the state park lake on a quiet Monday afternoon felt magical with the sunlight streaming through the new leaves.  Birdsong everywhere brightened my spirits.

Reaching the lake, I immersed myself in sketching the bushes on the far side of the lake.  The late afternoon sun lit their foliage, picking them out from the shadowy hillside background.

I first drew with a permanent Faber Castell Pitt pen.  When the ink had dried, I painted in washes of sap green and a cooler green made from Hooker's green and French ultramarine blue.  I mixed up a few different greens:

• Yellow Ochre added to the blue green mixture dulled it a bit.
• Winsor lemon mixed with sap green brightened it for the weeds along the shoreline on the right.
• Phthalo blue mixed with burnt Sienna created the deep forest green in the hillside behind the bushes
• I occasionally added some sap green to the phthalo blue-burnt Sienna mix to alter the hue in the background
• The ripples in the water were made with the phthalo blue & burnt Sienna mixture. I used more burnt Sienna to make brown-green lake water.  

After I had finished painting the lake scene, I noticed a male Baltimore Oriole perched in a sapling just 12 feet away! I sketched him in pen as he sat in different positions.

His plumage was so intensely orange, I used a technique called glazing to recreate the glowing orange color of his feathers in the sunshine.  With glazing, you layer in a bright, often light color underneath another wash.  Painting in layers and letting each layer dry, creates a bolder effect than simply mixing all the colors together at once. 

Here, I painted a wash of warm azo yellow and let it dry.  Then I brushed in a mix of azo yellow and warm Pyrrol red. Yellow is often the color I use in glazing beneath other layers for bright leaves, bold birds, or colorful flowers. Yellow adds a sunny effect, and the finished painting seems to glow.

I hope you take some time to play with your art supplies this week and try out these techniques!

Happy Creating!

Discover New Possibilities with Color Swatching!

I have been reading a wonderful book on the power of watercolor sketching to bring you joy & liven up your art practice.

One of the first activities author Jen Russell-Smith outlines is making a color chart.  She recommends it as a way to fill the first blank page in a sketch journal.

I had a small travel set of Winsor & Newton watercolors I had gotten while on board the Queen Mary 2 last summer.  I wanted to test this little travel palette out, so I created a grid of squares using a waterproof, black pen, and then put a dot of each color across the top and down the left side of the grid.  

I also filled in each pure color in the diagonal where the color meets up with itself from the top and the left side.

I mixed every color with every other color as they met up on the grid.  

A surprisingly useful bunch of colors resulted!  For instance, when I mixed Sap Green and Chinese White, I discovered the color I've been seeking to paint the silvery green foliage of Autumn Olive bushes.

And, did you know that when you mix  Pthalo Green and Burnt Sienna, you get a lovely deep forest green?  I discovered these colors and more!

At the bottom of the page, I tested out 8 of my 12 colors, painting a concentrated swatch at the top, then watering down each color towards the bottom.

Watercolors look different in the pan than they do after they dry on the paper, so this swatching page will come in handy as I paint and sketch with this travel kit.  It's amazing to me the amount and variety of colors I can create from this tiny, 2 1/2" by 5" kit.

Get to know the potential in your watercolor palette with this great swatching project!