Erasers
Use erasers sparingly to avoid damaging the paper surface – a soft putty eraser is best. Leave the rough pencil outlines on the paper when you are painting, unless they are very heavy.
Sketch pads
Carry a sketch pad around to make quick drawings of any interesting subjects you come across. For colour reference sketches use watercolour pads or small loose sheets. Cartridge paper is fine for sketching, but useless for painting on as it has a poor surface.
Easels
A metal easel is light in weight but stable enough for working on location. I work with the board fairly upright, which discourages the use of excess water. You should be able to tilt the board to a horizontal position when required to control the movement of wet paint. Painting boxes also provide a useful easel. A low-cost alternative is to use wooden blocks to slope the backing board.
A painting box incorporates a lift-up easel. It can also be used to store your painting equipment.
Backing board and clips
It is essential to keep the paper flat while working, so attach it to a backing board cut slightly larger than your selected paper size. Thin plywood or blockboard is ideal. Use spring clips to retain the paper at each corner. This method also allows you to pull the paper flat if it bulges a little after damping. Do not stick masking tape all round the edge of the paper or it will ridge up like a corrugated roof when water is liberally applied to the surface.
Water pots
Always use two plastic water pots or jars – one for rinsing your brush and one for clean water for mixing – or you will never paint fresh-looking paintings. Make sure the top opening is large enough to take your largest brush. Position the pots below the level of your painting to avoid splashing your work.
Don Harrison in his studio. He uses both a lightweight metal easel and a painting box, which allows him to be flexible in his working approach.
Kitchen roll
Use absorbent kitchen roll rather than tissue, which can leave a fluffy residue on your paper.
Palette knife
Widely used by oil painters, a palette knife is an excellent tool for lifting out paint to suggest light stems or trunks of trees. It can also be used flat to the paper for moving paint around to create a textured effects on rocks.
Masking fluid
Masking fluid, or Frisket, is useful for masking off small white areas. Apply it with a damp or soapy brush to make the bristles easier to clean. Only remove the masking when the paper is fully dry.
Used in the right way, colours can create visual excitement or a mood of peaceful tranquillity. They can be garish and strident or restful and harmonious, bold and powerful or incredibly subtle. Colours can make or mar a painting, so they are a crucial part of picture making. But for the new painter, choosing the right colours and understanding how to mix them can be a minefield.
The plethora of books, videos and magazine articles simply adds to the confusion, offering an overwhelming amount of conflicting advice. Some suggest a limited palette, while others promote the use of many hues.
Most people require a simple-to-understand, easy-to-remember system for selecting, mixing and adjusting colours. This chapter provides a logical explanation for choosing particular colours, with some simple mixing techniques to help you arrive at the hue you want quickly and easily.
FISHERMAN AT PARLEY
38 × 56 cm (15 × 22 in)
The autumn trees have shed much of their foliage, but the colours are essentially warm. The pale neutral sky and the cool colours of the distant trees contrast well with the warmer colours in the foreground.
Primary colours
As children, we are taught about colour in simple terms. We are shown how the colours of the rainbow can be formed into a circle to make a colour wheel and told how the primary colours red, yellow and blue cannot be mixed from any other colours. For artists, this basic thoeretical knowledge can help the colour mixing process. Use the order of the colours in the colour wheel as a handy guide for arranging the paints on your palette.
Primary colours – reds, yellows and blues – are so called because they cannot be mixed from other colours. They form the basis for all colour mixing.
Complementary colours
Most of us know what happens when different primary colours are mixed together – red and yellow make orange, blue and yellow give green and red and blue produce violet. By adding the second primary in each case, a secondary colour mix is produced. Logically, if these secondary colours can be mixed from the primaries, there is no need to buy them for your palette.
Each secondary colour, having been mixed from two of the primary colours, is usually referred to as the complementary colour of the other primary. Thus the complementary colour of red is green (a mixture of the other two primaries), the complementary colour of yellow is violet and the complementary colour of blue is orange. So what, I hear you ask? The useful point to remember is that placing complementary colours next to each other makes each of them stand out vividly. On the other hand, mixing all three primary colours together in roughly equal amounts results in dark grey or muddy colours and should be avoided.
Even when you know how to mix these combinations of primary colours, you may still find it difficult to make a particular hue. You would be right in thinking that a few more colours might be useful. But what colours should you choose and in any case why select particular primaries instead of alternative reds, blues or yellows, and what difference will choosing different ones make? Read on!
The standard colour wheel, showing six colours. These are the three primaries – red, yellow and blue – and the three secondary mixes – orange, green and violet.
Warm and cool colours
When we look at colours they have an obvious warm or cool appearance. In fact, we tend to think of violet/blue/green colours as cool and red/orange/yellow colours as warm. This warm or cool look can be used to create a mood or seasonal influence.
If your selected colours include a cool and a warm version of each primary this gives you the flexibility to mix almost any colour you wish. Manufacturers have different names for similar colours, so choose them visually. For example, Lemon Yellow and Aureolin have the greenish yellow appearance of real lemons whereas Cadmium Yellow Deep and Gamboge will both lean towards orange and look like strong custard. Do not buy ready-mixed greens, oranges or violets – these can be mixed from the primaries.