Making colour charts work for you ....

© Vicki Lee Johnston

I love colour ... lots of it!  However I realise perhaps I love it too much because I have acquired too many tubes of paint and confusion was starting to reign -  who needs twelve different yellows?   There is so much more to it - and this I realise the more I work with watercolours and see the outcome of decisions like choosing an opaque when I needed a transparent colour.  My page of flowers for the SBA assignment was a disaster for me because I realised too late that some of the pigments were affecting the outcome greatly .... if I want to avoid the muddy look and in particular having to wash off and start again ... I need to put the time into understanding colour more.

Colour Chart

Here is my overall colour chart ... all the paints acquired and some not even on there!  A big difference to where I started with only six pigments.  If you want to see the amount of colours you can create from only six here is my blog post

I am very happy I started that way because I do have a greater understanding of colour mixing. If I needed to could go back to using only six it would be good enough.  But there are colours like Quin Magenta, Quin Coral and Quin Violet which I love so much .... and many of my artist friends have put me on to so many good colour fixes ...

Transparent Colours

So I made a deal with myself - before I started the next painting I had to sort my watercolours and understand more about each one to avoid the confusion of before.  I started by sorting all the transparent colours and making their own colour chart which is helpful if you want to create beautiful clear, colourful washes and layer your work.

I also decided to do mini charts in their own colour families...

and while I was at it included colour strips with the pigment details.  These will prove useful for working outdoors and trying to match up colour with a plant or flower and noting it in the sketchbook for painting in the studio later.

If you think this sounds like a lot of work you're right - I spent a few days just working on colour ... but I have a little more confidence that when I make a choice I know whether the pigment is transparent or opaque, staining, granulating, etc.  Perhaps one day I will learn enough about colour to produce works with the luminosity and brilliance of one of my favourite artists, Carolyn Jenkins.   I am always attracted by strong, bold artworks - watercolours can be a little pale at times and to create such colour you have to choose carefully....  for inspiration see Carolyn's website.

http://www.carolynjenkins.co.uk/

Composition ...

I have finally completed Assignment 5 of the SBA Distance Course - this assignment highlights Composition - bringing together all the elements of learning so far - line, form, tone, colour - and our studies with leaves and flowers.  The subject was not a whole plant on a page, more an arrangement of cut stems from a flowering plant - arranged on paper in a way that was aesthetically pleasing.

Painted the flowers first ...

The plant I chose was an Alyogyne ... there was very little in flower at the time of starting as our seasons are opposite to the UK.  When painting in such detail it helps if you have a great synergy with the subject.

Building up the washes

 The Alyogyne was growing on the side of the road during our recent visit to the country - the flowers are outstanding in their colour.  Also outstandingly difficult to paint as they change constantly - from pink/purple to a vivid violet and then blue/purple.  However I am always drawn to vibrant colour and wanted to learn about these pigments .... I posted previously about the time spent with colour testing and I am happy with the results....

Starting to paint the leaves ...

The washes were built up very slowly using only Quinacridone Magenta, French Ultramarine and Winsor Violet, each flower varying in hue.

The painting took many weeks of work in my spare time, and this courageous little plant even survived inside the house.  I had cut and arranged the stems while planning my composition but needed to use the plant for reference.  The Alyogyne is used to full sun and by the time I completed the painting there was only one flower left on it - it is now retired to the garden .....

© Vicki Lee Johnston

Thank you for visiting ... and for your lovely comments, they are very encouraging!

SBA Distance Course - Page of Flowers

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Completing this page was a marathon .. of choice.  Even though it's winter in Australia - there were still reasonable options for this assignment - a page of seven flowers, showing little stem and no leaves.  We were asked to show a broad range of flower types and colours.  You'd think this would be easier, with all that colour and variety, however it was exhausting doing all the colour testing to match and I painted quite a few flowers before I ran out of time and had to get on with commencing the final page.

 This is my colour chart so far - big difference from the six colours I used for two years!  Spoilt for choice perhaps, but it's difficult to get the right colour for a flower so I'm glad I was limited to six when I first started painting - I learnt colour mixing to achieve better results.  Even so, in many cases it dries very differently! 

I started by painting a Flowering Quince which grows beside our house.  It's been there for years and only recently started flowering.  The second flower is a Dipladenia from the garden and I really enjoyed painting both of them.

The next flower I had some trouble with.  The Tree Dahlia  was down at the local garden centre - so I made sketches, tonal studies, paint swatches and took photos as reference.  I had an accident with the watercolour on the flower and spent a lot of time trying to fix it but ended up with a very washed out dahlia.  I  added back washes of colour and while I was disappointed I wasn't prepared to start the page all over again!

I continued from there to try and make the deadline - the next flower was a lovely daisy type - Arctotis - and I had trial runs with it but struggled with foreshortening and light and shade.  For once I stepped away before I overworked it and was happy with the result.

 Painting the Vinca minor and trying to match the periwinkle blue was difficult as the real flower kept deepening in colour as I painted. 

Following this, a Camellia and as I was losing time, the final flower was a little pink Oxalis.  While it seems an insignificant flower I remember liking them on the farm - although considered a weed, I thought it was pretty, particularly when it may be the only thing flowering!

When I stepped back and saw the painting with new eyes, I was quite surprised by how bold it was!  I would usually stretch the painting on completion as I work with wet on wet washes and the paper is quite buckled.  At this point there was no time left - so I took a few quick photos and off it went to the UK......

SBA Diploma Distance Course - Leaf Page

After spending time playing with colour charts and learning more about how the colours interact I spent a lot of time sourcing leaves for the third assignment for the Society of Botanical Artists Diploma Course.  I am finding the planning stage the most difficult part of these assignments as there is so much observation and contemplation required before even getting started.

 The third assignment called for a page of eight leaves - at least six primarily green, two coloured and one of the leaves was to be a monocotyledon.







I decided to choose the monocot first and although there were many typical examples available I chose the Spathiphyllum due to its graceful curve and wonderful opportunity to show tonal contrast in the veins.

I found it difficult to go straight into painting the leaf so I made a line drawing with tonal contrasts as a guide to assist me.  Once I was happy with the position and colours I then moved on to composing the rest of the leaves.   This consisted of trials with each leaf to ensure I was happy to continue on to the final piece.

Once I had more than a few leaves on the final page it was quite nerve wracking.
As I started each new one - I realised that  there was no chance to begin all over again if I wasn't happy with the final result.  It had taken too long to get to this point and I needed to commit.  I saw that the composition was a little lop-sided so I added a few leaves to balance.


My final page consisted of - from top left clockwise - Senecio rowleyanus - String of Pearls, Spathiphyllum - Peace Lily, Alyogyne 'Delightfully Double', Liquidambar styraciflua 'Oakville Highlight', Magnolia grandiflora 'Little Gem', Hoya carnosa 'Variegata', Eucalyptus wandoo 'Wandoo', Codiaeum variegatum - Croton, Hibiscus tiliaceus 'Rubra'.

© Vicki Lee Johnston

My photographs are not ideal - I was going to take a better quality pic once the assignment returned - however my tutor advised me that my page of leaves had arrived quite battered and that the flyweight was broken and the artwork creased down the page.  It has a long way to travel from Western Australia to the UK so I guess this is one of the downfalls of distance learning.  I really enjoyed the page of leaves but I am very keen to start using a rainbow of colours again!

Watercolour Painting and Colour Charts ...

 Prior to the SBA Distance Course I have only worked with a limited watercolour palette of six colours .... Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Lemon, Cerulean Blue, French Ultramarine, Cadmium Red and Permanent Rose.

 The first watercolour painting I ever did was to complete a set of colour charts using only these six pigments - and blending them to produce colour variations.  You can see the colours on each side of the page before gradually mixing them to provide different hues.

I also diluted these blends which shows in the small boxes underneath indicating when more water was added and the resulting paler shades.

   I ended up with over 400 versions of these colours from only six - it  taught me a lot about colour mixing and the water to pigment ratios.

Working on the third assignment for the SBA Distance Course - a page of leaves - meant I had to learn more about colour - specifically greens.  With  advice and suggestions from the Botanical Artists Forum I bought a few more tubes to add to my collection of paints. I started mixing the colours again to see how many greens I would have available and how the colours interacted with each other.   I found it so helpful  to become familiar with the colours and these charts are now a constant source of reference.

Playing with mixing greens ...

Assignment 2 - SBA Diploma Distance Course

Magnolia grandiflora 'Little Gem'

Assignment 2 for the course saw us continuing in graphite work - we began with a few tonal exercises, including shading spheres and cylinders to show light source.

I then moved on to the main requirement which was once again a continuous tonal study - to be more complicated and detailed than the first - reflecting our understanding and skill in this medium.

I felt my first piece showed more of the mid tones in the Allamanda cathartica so when deciding on this assignment subject I wanted to find something with strong tonal contrasts, allowing me to work with stronger depth and tone, texture and form.  I spent a long time looking for subjects - the suggestion that it was a plant with flower etc., became a little difficult as we are now in Autumn in Western Australia and very few options appealed which included flowers.

In my garden I found a Magnolia grandiflora 'Little Gem' with no flower, however had a wonderful seed head - to me, even more beautiful and complex than the flower.  I could see it would reflect the strong tonal differences - and to assist in making choices I often take a large sheet of white paper to place behind a plant while in the garden to determine if I feel it can translate well onto paper.  This branch with seed head certainly leapt out so I quickly did preliminary sketches and tonal practise to ensure I could achieve the result I wanted.

Work in progress

Once the drawing was complete and transferred onto watercolour paper,  it then took many long hours of tiny graphite ellipses delivered in feather light strokes - but I loved the branch and seed head so I was happy to spend so much time on this subject.  .

All images © Vicki Lee Johnston

I think that's key to a positive outcome - if you enjoy looking at it for hours, chances are others will enjoy seeing it for a moment on paper.

Assignment 1

The first assignment with the SBA Diploma Course is entirely in graphite.  I have never worked with pencils before - in fact rarely drawn at all until I began this journey.  I bought the recommended pencils - Faber Castell 9000 series and did a tonal strip to become familiar with the characteristics of the grades.

The first part of the assignment was to do a line drawing with no unnecessary detail - as you would prior to commencing painting.  I chose a Lily because it had graceful curves and flow - something I wanted to show in my drawing.   Now that the hard work was done I was disappointed not to be able to go on and paint it...

The second part of the assignment was a subject including flower, stem and leaf - stippled to show tone.  Have never 'stippled' before and I found placing endless tiny dots on a line drawing to show tone a very meditative experience.  I chose a hibiscus from our garden and worked quickly as the petals were drooping.   I can imagine using this method again as it was very relaxing. 

The final and most time consuming piece was a continuous tone drawing - showing all the grades of pencils used - from 4H to 8B - the lightest area being white and the darkest being black.  Choosing a subject can be the hardest part of these assignments because you know how much time you have to put into producing results and you really want to feel the subject will allow you to reflect the requirements needed.  I chose an Allamanda cathartica - a very pretty plant and I could see before starting it had a great variation in tones.  It took a lot longer to complete than anticipated and by the finish my poor Allamanda had dropped all its flowers and the leaves were turning yellow - it loves the sunlight and probably didn't appreciate being in my studio for a long period of time.