Thursday 4 October 2018

Colour charts and colour sketchbook pages


The colour that I used in the previous post was Daniel Smith's Sodalite Genuine. I like using this colour on it's own for tonal studies for it's unpredictable granulation and the way the blue and the black sometimes separate as it's drying. I think of it as a soft faded denim and as comfortable to use as a pair of well loved jeans is to wear. It occured to me that although I have used this colour often and have used it in mixes with other blues I hadn't actually made a colour recipe chart for it with the other colours in my palette.



Colour charts for black watercolours ©2018LisaLeQuelenec



Above is the chart painted this week on the left. To the right are some charts made previously  - you can see posts about previous expermients with black watercolours  here.  It was well worth doing the chart as I don't think I would have discovered these beautiful greens that can be mixed otherwise. I particularly like the way Sodalite Genuine mixes with Cobalt Turquoise Light, Green Gold and Indanthrene Blue (all Winsor & Newton)




Pages from my colour recipe and experiment book ©2018LisaLeQuelenec



This another chart to add to my colour sketchbook or recipe book. Below are a few pages from it that I have been refering to lately with all the greys, blues and aquas. It's filled with experiments, clippings, charts, notes and all sorts - even a couple of disposable palettes have been stuck in. To be honest it is an unruly mess with splats and spodges and scribbles but it is well thumbed, dog earred in places and beyond value to me. It's been added to over a number of years and as I am running out of room I will have to re-bind it to add more pages at some point in the future. It could end up as thick as a brick :o)  .

5 comments:

Debbie Nolan said...

Dear Lisa what a wonderful treat to study your watercolor charts. Seeing your mixes with DS sodalite genuine has inspired me to purchase a tube. I do love Daniel Smith watercolors. Just love seeing your sketchbook. :)!

Chris Lally said...

A recipe book - love your description! Thank you for sharing your secret for obtaining those beautiful greens, and for the look into your wonderful world of color. I agree with Debbie - what a treat!!

Salty Pumpkin Studio said...

Amazing work. Having color charts I believe, are a valuable resource.

RH Carpenter said...

Your color studies book is wonderful!! I love that you cut out pics from magazines to add to check the colors and see what you were aiming for with your color swatches - wonderful!!! We artists are a funny lot = we love seeing “backstage” in an artist’s planning and working before the big show comes on :).

Lisa Le Quelenec said...

Hi Debbie, thank you. Have you had a chance to try it out yet? I would love to see what you do with it.

Hi Chris, it does feel like a recipe book. I love colour, the juicy deliciousness of it and the magic of putting one colour next to another...a bit of this and a bit of that. What a thrill. Ironic that I paint so many greys and blues eh :o)

Hi Maywyn, thank you. I find colour charts really useful to back track my way to a specific colour. I don't always remember which exact pigment for certain effects at times so its handy to a have a reference. Sometimes the excercise provides a new discovery or characteristic of a pigment that was unexpected. I love surprises and am always learning.

Hi Rhonda, all sorts of things end up in the recipe book. There are fabric swatches, feathers, polystyrene from a coffee cup - if I see an interesting colour and it's flat enough to be stuck in fairly easily it goes in. More three dimensional objects get added to collections in the studio. One day my paintings might be full of colour you never know ;o)