THREE DOWN, ONE TO GO!

I redid the painting from the last post on traditional watercolor paper and I like it much better. I am actually using white and black pigment from the Dr. Martin's Hydrus liquid colors and I am pleased with the result. With GREY/TONE/SHADE, the tone parts look bright as long as I don't lower their intensity too much. I am a big believer in doing a painting a second or even third time until I get it right. Trying to rework watercolor just creates more problems than it fixes for me. I prefer a total do-over.

The second painting was my Split Compliment of Red/Blue Green and Yellow Green using the 3 forms of WHITE/HUE/TONE. I fudged a little with the hues because I wanted to try the Daniel Smith Watercolor Stix on this new paper I have. The colors I used were Quin Coral for the Red, Sap Green for the yellow green and Thalo Green, blue shade for the Blue Green. That's close enough. I actually like this one. It's pretty bizarre but fun. A little like a Baboon's bottom! The watercolor stixs actually worked much better on this paper than the tube paints I tried earlier. That means I shall take this paper with me for travel sketches in color. The stixs are good items for travel. I just touched a wet brush to them and painted directly on the paper.

The third painting used another Split Compliment combination of Yellow Orange with Blue and Violet. Faber Birren thinks that Split Compliments work best when there are two Tertiary colors and only one primary or secondary color. This one has only one Tertiary (yellow orange) but I am pleased with the results. The 3 color forms were TINT/TONE/SHADE.

I didn't get the last of the four paintings done today but it is nice to have something planned for the next day. It makes getting started so much easier. Tomorrow's painting will be with analogous colors. That should have a totally new look for Monsieur.