My friend Shari highly recommended a book named Making Color Sing by Jeanne Dobie. I have to say that in the first 6 pages I have learnt so much about watercolour properties. Watercolours are divided into transparent, staining and opaque colours and she thoroughly illustrates that by combining three opaque colors, you get a muddy color… I did not know that, even though I have experienced it many many times. But if you mix three transparent colours, the result is not muddy but a somewhat neutral value of grey. So today I followed one of her exercises for mixing different tonal values of greys and then added a jewel color, which is the complement of the dominant tone in the grey. These colors have been mixed from three “transparent” primary colours only: Aureolin Yellow (AY), Rose Madder Genuine (RMG) and Cobalt Blue (CB).
Then I decided to paint one of her paintings where she explains different tonal values through greys only… I really muffed the right hand side of the painting so I have cropped it off. Still, it seems as I am preparing for winter… and by the way, I am waiting for winter to arrive — with snow ;-) Have you noticed that on the right hand side of the painting it looks like a giant queen ant? As she has wings?
Voici une peinture qui se précipite vers l’hiver… peut-être aidée par moi-même, car j’aime bien l’hiver. J’ai peint cette image à partir d’un nouveau livre que je viens de découvrir que Shari m’a hautement recommendé et qui est fascinant. “Making Color Sing” de Jeanne Dobey. J’ai peint un exercice dans son livre… et le voici. Toute cette peinture ne repose que sur trois couleurs transparentes primaires: Aureolin Jaune, Rose Madder et Bleu Cobalt. Heu! On dirait qu’à droite c’est une fourmie reine géante (à cause des ailes) qui essaie de rentrer dans la peinture — LOL. La voyez-vous?
Watercolours: Winsor & Newton Artist watercolours
Paper: Stillman & Birn, Beta Series 140 lbs
Painting to see : Peindre pour voir 