Big cat watercolor series

Right now I am slowly starting a big cat series of watercolors. My goal is to use a limited palette mostly of complementary colors.

First was my tiger. I used quinacridone sienna for my orange and the complement of Prussian blue. I also used quinacridone burnt orange for a few of the shadows and neutral tint for the stripes. 

My second was a lion. I used quinacridone gold for the yellow and perylene violet as my complementary color for the shadows. I discovered that when mixed together they create a wonderful brown. I also used manganese blue hue for the sky, mixed with the quinacridone gold to make my green. 

As for the paper I am using Stephen Quiller paper made by Jack Richeson.  it is a wonderful 100% cotton rag paper that has both an internal and external sizing. The external sizing makes the paper wonderful for lifting techniques however it does not stand up to scrubbing very well as it is so soft it has a tendency to pull up on you. 

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My Halloween Triad.

Me and all of the other employees that worked in the Daniel Smith Stores were asked to choose a holiday theme triad, create line art for the triad and paint a version using the triad colors.  For those of you who do not know, Triads are set of three watercolors that Daniel Smith Artist Materials offers. There is the basic color primary triad and the secondary color triad. There are also special limited edition triads. The limited edition triads are often around a theme such as a Holiday or just an idea for a painting. Here are the current limited edition triads to give you an idea.

Last year I created the Frankenstein Triad, I got to choose my own colors which was a green, a purple, and a black. This year I did not get to make my own, I had to choose from triads that we had previously sold. Working part time has its benefits and downsides. This is one of the downsides. I was one of the last to choose, so I was limited to what I got to do.

I had gotten the Transylvania Triad. It offers French Ultramarine, Indigo and Organic Vermillion. Two blues and a red. A remarkably limited palette. The original featured artwork of a woman vampire wearing a Victorian era dress done in blue with red for the blood on and near her fangs. Sadly I do not have the original artwork. I knew I wanted to do something different, I choose to do Bram's Castle in Transylvania. I however was not able to get my original artwork back due to it being used to for multiple marketing purposes.

It was a challenge and I felt it came out very good. I used the vermillion for the roof and ultramarine for the castle walls. The sky was painted with a mixture of vermillion and ultramarine. Finally the trees below were done with indigo and a hint of vermillion here and there to soften the trees further back.

I do however have an image of the sets I was able to produce for the store.

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Watercolor palette part two

I am a firm believer in getting to know how the pigments in my palette work together. This means mixing all the colors together to see what they do. I highly recommend that every artist do this. Wether you are a watercolorist, acrylic or oil painter. It's basic color theory. 

Since I have 14 colors drew a 15 by 15 grid. I then used masking fluid to separate the squares. The top and left column are the pure colors. Every other square is a mixture of those colors. This gives an artist an idea of how their colors mix together. Of course this is only two colors mixed together. 

See the result below. 

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Watercolor palette

Senior level classes are kicking my butt. I made the decision to do more art. The easiest way for me to do so, is to do watercolor sketches.

Over the past year I have been playing with a lot of colors to define my palette. I use only Single pigment non-granulating, transparent colors because I like glazing, with a high degree of lightfastness. I am limiting my palette to only 14 colors. My palette can be separated into a basic mixing palette and a secondary convience palette. In addition I should state that I only use Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors.

Below is my travel palette of 14 colors.
 

My mixing colors consist of the basic warm / cool color theory. Which means that there is a warm and cool version of the primaries. 

Warm red = anthraquinoid scarlet (a orangey red much like cad red light or vermillion.)

Cool red = anthraquinoid red (a dark purple red, very close to the traditionally used Alizarin. Remember Alizarin is not very lightfast and permanent Alizarin is a mixture of multiple pigments)
Warm yellow = new gamboge. (very similar to Indian yellow but more lightfast and Cad yellow deep or Hansa yellow deep but more transparent.

Cool yellow = Lemon yellow (I prefer this over Hansa yellow light or Cad Yellow Light cause it is more transparent.)

Warm blue = indanthrone blue. (a great warm blue. Phthalo Blue Red shade is actually a better option but phthalo is very high staining and I prefer to use a lower staining pigment)

Cool blue = Prussian blue (a nice classic cool blue shade. Ultramarine is a semi-transparent so I did not use it and again Phthalo Blue Green Shade is very high staining.)

Neutral tint (great for mixing with other colors to darken them or to just use as a gray scale or black.)
 

My secondary colors are:

Orange = quinacridone sienna (the only transparent orange I like. It is more the color of an actual orange. Now Winsor and Newton's New limited edition Transparent Orange is very beautiful color. However after some research I discovered it is very fugitive and This I replaced it with Quin Sienna.)

Violet = perylene violet (this is just a wonderful dark purple color.)

Green = diopside genuine (the only primatec from Daniel Smith I use and it has a very low granulation rate. Most of the other greens I find are just not good enough or not transparent enough or multiple pigments, plus I find I can mix most greens.)
 

I do not like to use actual Browns for my earth tones. I have also found there are some great colors to mix together, mostly complimentary colors that make some great browns.

Quinacridone gold is a good replacement for raw sienna or yellow ochre. Especially Windsor and Newton's raw sienna.

Quinacridone burnt orange is a great earthy sienna color with yes a slight orange color to it. it works great for fall foliage, trees or just shadows in general.

Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet is a great replacement for burnt sienna. In fact it is the same pigment in winsor and Newton's brown madder. It has a nice red undertone.
 

Finally no palette is complete without cerulean blue. Since cerulean granulates I choose manganese blue hue instead. This is my one and only true convience color. I use it very sparingly as it is technically a shade of phthalo blue and thus stains a lot. I have also been playing with the idea of using winsor and newton's new limited sapphire phthalo blue but it would mean using more water to get it to be a lighter color.

I am hoping to start posting more watercolor sketches up soon. Until then happy painting. 

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