The Day Ends, Springfield, Virginia

This one was inspired from a Facebook post that I saw only four hours ago of a sunset in Springfield, Virginia. It looks nothing like the original photo, which had loads of gorgeous red clouds in the sky. Still, I'm not a realistic painter so I'm not that bothered whether it looks like the original photo as long as the final painting looks good either to me or to someone that might buy it.

Needless to say, most of this painting used just three primary colours: Indian yellow, French ultramarine and quinacridone magenta - three colours that form a great power trio. There's also some raw sienna (to avoid white bits in some spots where I left empty paper but which have since disappeared) and some cadmium red in an attempt to get some RED in the sky.

I'm happy with this one. I suspect that I'd be happier if it wasn't for Sunshine Through The Brambles three weeks ago, which used the same colours but ended up looking better. One thing this one has that Sunshine... didn’t is a foreground. I think the foreground here worked out OK. It uses just the three primaries (which didn't turn to mud because they're all transparent - thank you Hazel Soan!) and has come out nice and hazy. I used one of those special Terry Harrison brushes to flick up some grass in lots of places. I waited to do this until the paint was nearly dry and used it to emphasise some little hillocks bits that were starting to accidentally appear as the paint dried. I also couldn't resist a bit of splattering, with a mix of the three primaries in the tree and sky and with Indian yellow in the foreground.

This one is up for sale.

No abstract experiment today with acrylic inks because I'm out of granulation medium.

Whoa!

So, after the last painting was a quinacridone magenta free zone, I had to follow it up quickly with another painting. Something experimental, without too much thought put into it, definitely not based on any photo and possibly abstract.

After Purple Rain came out so well, I thought I'd go for the acrylic inks again and do something vaguely volcano related. I threw down a random sky with French ultramarine, quinacridone magenta and what I thought was Indian yellow but turned out to be cadmium yellow. Proof that I wan't thinking too much. Then came the hill with the same three colours plus cadmium red. All splashed on fairly randomly but thicker than the colours in the sky. Finally I applied some inks, sprayed water on them to make them move in the direction I wanted, tipped the paper around and applied granulation fluid in places. I kept doing this with all sorts of different colours (I used all five colours in my collection) until I ended up with something that looked good. At this stage the sky was looking a bit boring, so I went over it again to intensify it a bit. Then I spotted I'd been using the wrong yellow and switched to Indian yellow. I applied a load of this around the top of the hill to look a bit fiery and explosive. And a bit of quinacridone magenta in there too to make it orangey. Finally I flicked some bits of the (Indian yellow & quinacridone magenta) orange and Indian yellow onto the paper.

And then I stood back and all I can say is whoa! This is one of my favourites and I find it a little frightening that I have something like this in me. This one goes down as a big success.  It's up for sale.

Grand Teton National Park

I thought I should go back to basics and paint a normal looking landscape as these were popular on Facebook last year. This one is based on a view of some mountains in Grand Teton National Park. I found that out by googling the photo I started from. I can't remember where the photo came from: it could well have been a friend's holiday photo.

Most of the colour here is French ultramarine, transparent yellow, raw sienna and burnt umber. But there are two extra colours that I've put in following hints in a Paul Talbot-Greaves book on painting landscapes. One is cerulean blue, used in the bottom half of the sky (and granulating quite nicely, I have to say). The other is the use of cadmium yellow to add highlights in places where the transparent yellow just isn't yellow enough. No quinacridone magenta, which means I'll be doing a second painting today to get my purple fix.

I guess I'm happy with this. The values (ie how thick or thin the paint is) have worked out well for once. The colours are generally good. And I'm still looking like favourite for Sky Mountain Artist Of The Year when that becomes a thing. On the other hand, there's something a little flat about the painting. I'm not sure exactly what it is. And the branches on the tree in the foreground on the left are evenly spaced, making it look like that artificial Christmas tree that comes down from the attic each year.

This one has been cut up to be used as collage material.

Comfortably Numb

A fourth consecutive painting named after a song title. There's a clip on YouTube of David Gilmour playing a clip of Purple Rain in the middle of Comfortably Numb as a tribute to Prince. After yesterday's Purple Rain, I thought I should have a go at a Comfortably Numb painting. I thought Gilmour's trademark way of standing with one shoulder higher than another might make for a recognisable silhouette and I wanted to have lots of colours in the background reminiscent of a Floyd/Gilmour concert, while not wanting to replicate what you see at one of those concerts.

The four colours today were quinacridone magenta, French ultramarine, cadmium yellow and sepia. I started with a thin underpainting of the magenta, to give an underlying pink glow. I used cadmium yellow rather than Indian yellow because of its opacity - I wanted my yellow to be yellow and Indian yellow, being transparent, might have come out too orangey with the magenta behind it. There are some special effects there from salt, granulation fluid and some kitchen paper imprints.

The "sky" is the only bit about the painting that I like. The blending and granulation are good and the radial lines definitely add something. The Gilmour silhouette isn't quite as recognisable as I wanted: I expect people can guess who it is but only from the colours in the rest of the painting. The sepia shadows at the front are just wrong and should really have been mixed from the three primaries used in the rest of the painting. And, finally, the "stage" is too empty and boring.

This was more popular than I expected it to be both on Facebook and in the Q1 2019 survey.  It's been sold to someone who handed it over to a big Gilmour fan as a birthday present.  Happy birthday Sam!

Purple Rain

Today's effort is Purple Rain. I was thinking of doing some sort of blizzard scene as I was in the mood to do a moody sky and to flick paint all over the place. But then a thought came to me in the shower. Why does it have to be white paint flicked everywhere? Why not another colour? And by the time I'd got to washing between my toes, the idea for Purple Rain was born.

The main four colours today were Payne’s grey, French ultramarine, Indian yellow and quinacridone magenta. There’s also some Prussian blue but only in the most distant hills where I wanted to use a cooler blue. And the acrylic inks are there again. Manly earthy red and indigo but with a bit of sepia. Plus, of course, the granulation fluid.

I had some compositional objectives coming in to this painting:

- get lots of different colours into the sky: make it the star of the show

- get the house and the figure at the compositional hotspots, both 2/3rds of the way across with one 1/3rd down and one 2/3rds down.

- get some contrasts going by having some orange (in the sky and roof) right next to some violet

- use the runs from the inks to give the impression of rain running down hills

And I managed to hit the spot on all of them. The worst bit about the painting is the foreground figure and dog. I was too impatient with them and should have waited for everything else to dry properly. On the other hand, it does look like we're seeing them with rain running down our glasses so some people might like it like that.

This one was a success and has been sold to a former boss and curry fan down in Sussex.

Twist In My Sobriety

A second painting today and it's another abstract with inks. I was struggling to think of a name for it, so just picked the name of a Tania Tikaram track after doing another painting earlier today that shared a name with one of her tracks. Deep.

The underlying watercolours are raw sienna, light red and transparent yellow. The plan was to start with something generally orangey that I could add some indigo or maybe green ink to & end up with roughly complimentary colours. As it turned out, I used all five inks. With the sap green and olive green, I tried to tip the paper to make them run up the page and that seemed to work OK. With the sepia, indigo and earthy red, I tried to make them run down but with less success. I used granulation fluid with the inks, just like before. The grass at the top was just added by applying a brush to the inks that were already there. I didn’t add a point of interest (like the house in Horsehead Quarry) because the painting ended up looking like something on a much smaller scale.

This actually looks OK in a frame, even if it's an acquired taste.  It's up for sale.

Elephant

I've been thinking for a while about painting an elephant Hazel Soan style and finally got around to it today.

The elephant itself was first painted in raw sienna, then quinacridone magenta went on top of that and finally French ultramarine. All wet into wet. Some shadowy bits were added in sepia once that was dry.  The background has Indian yellow, French ultramarine (like in the elephant - I didn't want more than one blue), raw sienna and burnt umber. I used a little bit of titanium white on the tusks but greyed them out so they weren’t too bright.

Overall I'm happy with this. The Hazel Soan colours in the elephant give it loads of vibrancy and its shape is pretty good. Compositionally, though, it's a bit dull, just being an elephant in the centre, taking up most of the picture. And I had some trouble with the ear, initially making it the wrong shape and having to go in afterwards to make it bigger. But I think that's something you only notice if you're looking for it.

This one didn’t do well in the Q1 2019 survey, so I gave it as a present to the bratty niece who first suggested I paint an elephant.  It's not as if I could imagine ever selling this one.

Horsehead Quarry

I thought I'd try something different. After checking out some Jean Lurssen videos on YouTube I thought I'd invest in some acrylic inks and have a go at some abstract landscaping.  I threw down some random watercolours, made them wetter, tilted the paper around to make them run.  Then added some bits of acrylic ink, dripped some granulating fluid on the ink and tilted the paper again.  Finally, I added a bit of detail at the top of the cliff.

Watercolours on the cliff side are just burnt sienna and transparent yellow.  I added in some sap green, indigo, earthy red and sepia inks.  And above the cliff line, there's French ultramarine in the sky, French ultramarine and Indian yellow in the greenery and cobalt blue, cadmium red, sepia and titanium white in the house and tree.

I'm more than happy with this as a first experiment with acrylic inks.  Fogging out the house at the end was a good move - before that it stood out too starkly against all the abstract stuff around it.  I'm also happy with the Jean Haines style dribbles against a white background in the bottom left.  Oh, and there's a random horse's head there on the cliff face.  Its eye is up in the top left.  Oh and a huge one on the right with an eye just below the house.  This one will definitely be framed and put up for sale.

Materials-wise, I used Daler Rowley acrylic inks. As well as sepia, indigo, earthy red and sap green, I've got olive green standing by. I might need to invest in some white at some point and maybe some sort of yellow.  There's a hexagonal wooden box you can get in The Works for £3 or £4 that fits seven DR ink bottles perfectly and I'm kicking myself for only buying five.

The Old Man Of Storr

It's a double painting day today. This time I've gone for a conventional landscape for the first time in a while.  It's the Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye.  I've been up to the Storr and it's the most wonderful isolated spot I've ever been in.  Strongly recommended.

Most of the painting only used French ultramarine, quinacridone magenta, burnt sienna (making its debut) and transparent yellow.  Burnt umber was used in the rocks.  I used the Terry Harrison technique of painting the rocks in nice vibrant colours first, then painting over them. Wealth thick mix of French ultramarine and burnt umber and finally scraping the dark stuff off with. A credit card. some granulating fluid was used in the greenery and in the pinky middleground.

It's another painting with pros and cons.  Big successes were the sky, the (soft for once) background and the vibrancy of the colours (transparent colours are the way forward). Also worth mentioning the shadows where I used a complimentary primary (quinacridone magenta) rather than taking the easy route with Payne's grey or sepia. But the rocks let the painting down. That's a bit of a bummer when they're supposed to be the star of the show. I don't know what went wrong.  Maybe I laid the dark on too thickly.  Or maybe I shouldn't be doing this on rough surfaced paper. More experimentation is needed.

Overall, this is a reject.  After covering it in a purple looking glaze as an experiment, I've cut it up to use as collage material.

White, Six-Petalled Flower From Northern Thailand

This is my second attempt at a bit of free and loose Jean Haines style flower painting. It's of a white, six-petalled flower from Northern Thailand. I've searched the internet for images and that's the closest I can get to someone putting a name to it.

Main three today were transparent yellow (making its debut), Prussian blue and light red.  Burnt umber was splashed in in places in the bottom half and cadmium yellow and sepia (another debut) were brought in at the end for the bees. I also used some sort of chemical to make the paint extra runny & loosen things up.  The benefit of bringing in transparent yellow to replace (the opaque) lemon yellow is already apparent.  Everything shines a bit more.

And I'm happy with it.  It's as loose and splattery as I've ever been, so that's progress. With lots of sweeps of paint along the bottom left to top right diagonal, there's a lot of energy there. A few splatters of paint flung from the brush helped too.  I think it's spoilt by the bees though.  The bigger bee is the worst bit about the painting but I'm happier with the smaller bee, even if it is almost just a smudge.  This was good enough to go up for sale at the time it was created but has since been taken down.

Sunshine Through The Brambles

I got the idea for this one yesterday afternoon, staring out of the lounge window as Bradley Walsh was asking "What has the chaser put?"  Not that anything in the sky was this colour.  But there was a big jumble of branches in front of it.

I only used three colours today: French ultramarine, quinacridone magenta and (making its debut) Indian yellow.  I was keen to try out a combination of three transparent primaries in the foreground, so didn't bother with Earth colours.  With those three colours, I wanted to combine them into a single brown or grey in some places and blend them together on the paper in others with individual tints showing, as if the branches were reflecting the colours in the sky.

The paper was treated with gesso the day before and I did loads of random scribbling in it using a palette knife.  With this textural effect and a painted background that was random and abstract rather than planned and realistic, I like to think there's a little bit of Ann Blockley in there.

I consider this to be a successful painting.  It was picked out by my kid brother as a housewarming present.

Colour Charts

With four new colours joining my palette this week (or five if you count cadmium red, now promoted from associate to full member), I thought I should do myself some colour charts. It would be generous to describe this as an update to my existing, half-hearted charts.

I'm not one of those that goes for all-play-all charts.  I'm not interested in what happens when I mix two blues together.  Instead, I have three charts: the blue+yellow=green chart, the yellow+red=orange chart and the red+blue=purple chart. I put burnt umber with the reds to start with but after it started producing some vaguely greeny shades when mixed with blue, I also included it with the yellows.  And there are some pen lines on the charts separating the transparent-only mixes from those that include opaque or semi colours.

Initial thoughts:

- most of the colours on the purple chart are greys and browns.  I have to make sure I'm using the right red if I want purple tones

- Indian yellow and transparent yellow are already showing a lot of promise.

Now to laminate them & stash them away with my gear.

Changes to my palette

After reading that Hazel Soan book, I’ve made some changes to my palette.

I've now got a better understanding of the difference between transparent and opaque colours. Transparent colours have two big advantages over opaque:
(i) they let the white of the paper shine through, resulting in more vibrant paintings, and
(ii) when used in mixes (in the palette or on the paper, wet into wet) hey are far less likely to turn to mud.

Maybe one of my problems up to now has been that my two yellows (lemon and cadmium) have both been opaque. So, I'm introducing two transparent yellows to my palette. Indian yelow replaces cadmium yellow as my warm (orangey) yellow of choice and transparent yellow replaces lemon yellow as my cool (greeny) yellow. Hazel Soan likes aureolin as a cool yellow but I hear bad stories about how it turns from yellow to grey if a painting gets exposed to the sun. Cadmium yellow will keep a place on the palette but will only be used very carefully. Lemon yellow is expunged.

So here's the rundown of the new, 16-colour palette, left to right, top row to bottom:

1. Prussian blue. Still there. My cool (greeny), transparent blue.

2. Cerulean blue. Still there. Another cool blue but it's opaque, so to be used with care.

3. Cobalt blue. Still there. Another cool, opaque one to be used with care. My go to colour when I want something in the foreground that screams BLUE!

4. French ultramarine. Still there. My warm (purpley), transparent blue. Will always be a favourite.

5.  NEW! Transparent yellow. My new cool (greeny), transparent yellow. Transparent, obviously. Replaces lemon yellow.

6. Payne's grey. Still there. Will be used mainly for skies from now on. When it comes to shadows, my plan going forward is to use the primary colours already in the painting, either by mixing greys,  or by coming up with some complimentary colour to the main colour in the painting.

7. NEW!  Sepia. This is a very dark brown that I'll use for wet into wet shadows as it doesn't spread out of control. I’ve seen how Hazel Soan uses it for spots on leopards, shadows behind elephants' ears and outlines around cats' eyes and it looks great.

8. Quinacridone magenta. Still there. My cool (purpley), transparent red. Will always be a favourite.

9. NEW! Indian yellow. My new (orangey), transparent yellow.

10. Raw sienna. Still there. A cool, yellowy earth colour.

11. NEW! Burnt sienna. A warm, transparent, reddy earth colour. Has lots of uses and its transparency will make it a good substitute for light red at times.

12.  Light red. Still there. My main warm (orangey) red. It's only semi transparent, so I'll need to be careful with it.

13.  Cadmium yellow. My opaque yellow for when I want the painting to scream YELLOW! Its role in mixing oranges and bright greens has been taken by India yellow but it's still worth its place in the squad.

14. Titanium white. Still there. My opaque white, never to be used in mixes, only really to be used when masking fluid won't work.

15. Burnt umber. Still there. An earth colour that I use a lot in landscapes.

16.   NEW!  Cadmium red. My opaque red for when I want the painting to scream RED! To be used very carefully and not in mixes.

The primaries are arranged in a colour wheel order up the left hand side, along the top and down the right. The six utility colours (I think that's the best collective word for them) fill the other six slots. And in terms of temperature, the coolest colours are top left and the warmest bottom right. I'm looking forward to getting started with this new squad.

Freebird Nebula

I'm waiting patiently for three different yellows to be delivered (raw sienna plus two two new ones - watch this space) so thought I'd have a go at the one painting in my ideas stash that didn't need any yellow.

Main colours today were quinacridone magenta, French ultramarine and Payne's grey.  There's also some splattered titanium white for the stars and some cobalt blue and cadmium red added in places for some weight and variety.  Plus salt which I tried to only sprinkle on the red and blue, but there are a couple of salty stars in the bottom left.

Although the original Nebula painting was far better, this is OK and definitely better than It Started As The Helix Nebula.  It was based on a photo of the Orion Nebula but evolved into something very different.  I'm going to call it Freebird Nebula.  It's not up for sale though: it's just not that special.

Hazel Soan's Watercolour Rainbow - Book Review

I lashed out on another book last week.  I don't plan on turning this into a site that reviews books but I have to say this one is well worth the money.  The second half of the book is the best bit.  Here she goes through all the most popular Winsor & Newton colours (if you use Daniel Smiths you might want to wait for someone else to write a book on his colours), tells us whether they're transparent/opaque/in between and cold/warm/hot and what are the pros and cons of each colour that you never hear anywhere else.  And she tells us about some good colour combinations.  And, finally, she puts forward a really strong case for having a palette that's mainly made up of transparent colours and to only use the opaque very sparingly.  This will be a life changer for me.

I'm planning on revising my palette of colours later this year in readiness for the 16-pan, hand-made, Roberson-style brass paintbox that I'm hoping will appear on a future birthday or Christmas.  Watch this space for news.  But, in the meantime, if you're a watercolour painter who uses W&N paints, you really should check out this book.

<Edit. Several weeks later and I can confirm this book has made a real difference to my painting. The use of transparent yellows in my palette is making my paintings shine more than they've ever done before. This book was worth every penny. It scores five palettes. Oh, and I've decided to post up reviews of all of my art books after all.>

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