Colour swatches

A few years ago when I did a painting class in St Ives, the tutor suggested that we try mixing our colours up to see what they actually produced, as cool yellows with cool blues give you a different shade of green than warm yellows with a warm blue. I took it one step further and decided to try and mix almost all the colours in my paint palette to see what I would get. This resulted in the swatch above, which I still have to this day, albeit slightly faded and is stuck up on my side unit.

Accomplished artists know exactly what colours work and what ones don't but sometimes I think even the best can forget just how well two colours mixed together can produce one great colour. It's also great to see which pigments granulate and which ones don't as it can be cool to let paints do their own thing on the paper.

I don't know about you but I tend to keep my watercolours laid out in the same location in my paint box, so in order to help me pick just the right shade, I painted a bit of each colour onto some watercolour paper and stuck it up on the wall above my art desk. Even though I have been using these colours for years, I still find it useful to cast my mind over the colours to make sure I pick the right one if I am looking for a particular shade.

Last Christmas I was given a wonderful gouache paint box with the most beautiful vibrant colours in it so I am now getting used to different colours and how adding white affects them. I decided to do the same exercise with these paints to help me. I love how you can see the effect of adding white (it's the smaller line above each colour).

It's well worth experimenting if you haven't already.

Happy Thursday xx