Before beginning a new series of work I'll spend time creating a colour palette that fits with what I've observed in the landscape.
Depending on the time of year, the weather, my mood, lots of factors some colours resonate more than others.
Here are a few ways I go about gathering my colours together.
I'll make some notes while I'm out sketching and take photos for reference, but one of my favourite things to do is to re-name the colours I see with titles of things that they remind me of.
Rhubarb-tart pink, fur jacket green, Rigsby cardigan brown, sun-baked crab, Auntie Val's red leather sofa, and so it goes on.
It always amazes me how easy it is to recreate these colours when I'm back in the studio, with only the name as reference. Try it, it's great fun!
I rarely use true primary colours when I mix my paints. I prefer to substitute each for an alternative - for example alizarin crimson or magenta for a red. Indian yellow or ocre for a yellow and Prussian or Paynes grey for a blue.
Sometimes I'll experiment with a green for my blue, or an earth colour for my red or yellow.
And often I'll add a wild card - a colour I loved the look of but doesn't quite fit in. A fluorescent pink spray, neon orange pigment or pale olive to name just a few. This always delivers some wonderful and unexpected combinations.
Combining the colours I've selected is the beginning of real colour discovery, the shades and tints to follow.
I've tried many times to create organised rows of little square swatches, but it rarely lasts.
I prefer to mix the colours wet-in-wet in a sketch book, with edges overlapping and merging to see what I get!
Adding white to lighten and an earth colour to mute, rarely black.
Seeing what earth colour will work best. It could be a burnt Sienna day, or a raw umber?
I will always have a light neutral, often mixed from complimentary colours, or a little of everything on the palette, with added white to create a chromatic grey.
The great thing about complementaries is not just that they make each other look good, but also when mixed together they make a great earth colour.
It took me a while to grasp complementary colours - opposites hardly felt complementary!! Until I read somewhere that the word complimentary comes from the Greek to complete. Which is what we do when we add two primaries to create a secondary, which then becomes the complimentary of the remaining primary! Thereby completing the primary triad!
Still with me? Fear not the Tate provides a great explanation of complimentary colours, but there is sooo much stuff out there - just find what makes sense to you.
I love colour, and often have to rein myself in from creating a carnival kaleidoscope in every painting!
But really there aren't any rules that can't be broken.
It's about having fun and seeing what happens - that's when the joy shines through!!
So here’s to much more mixing, modging, splodging and swatching.
I thought I was a rare and messy breed of double dippers and swatch splodgers, but after writing this I found Sandi Hester mixing in a similar splogy way to me using complimentary colours.
This is also an interesting listen - Stretch your limited palette by adding variations of one colour out of the red, blue and yellow.
Do you love colour? Let me know how you go about choosing and creating your palettes?
You'll find loads of colour in my collections. Click on the image to see more.
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