Monday 17 June 2013

Barcelona Primaries


I used my little water colour field box for the majority of the sketches, but a few times I did experiment with mixing from three primary colours.  I had a couple of sunny hours on a Sunday afternoon in Pamplona and worked with just three tubes of paint.  I would have done this more often, but didn't have a cover for my little palette and didn't want to goo up my paint kit.

I got onto this through one of my on-line mentors Shari Blaukopf who is going to use this as part of her sessions for the Urbansketchers Symposium this summer in Barcelona.  Her Barcelona mix is French ultramarine (blue), Aureolin (yellow) and Rose Madder (red).  The green, orange and purples are obvious, what I didn't expect was the subtle range of beiges and greys possible by using all three pigments.  Shari introduced me to limited palettes last summer in a workshop and believes they contribute to harmonious paintings.  She has a very sophisticated understanding of colour, so I'll take her advice.

This 'Barcelona primaries"mix will be perfect for the stone buildings and crisp shadows in Barcelona, but I haven't been too pleased with the range of greens.  I learn by doing and only then investigating theory.  After two years of blundering about with watercolour, I'm now ready to do some reading as well as experiment with some other primaries to see what I can mix for greens.



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