Watercolor Musings: No Excuses Travel Set - Part II

Watercolor Musings: No Excuses Travel Set - Part II: "In an earlier blog, I described the small palette made of an altoids tin and empty palette pans filled by colors of my choice. Recently I wa..."

No Excuses Travel Set - Part II

In an earlier blog, I described the small palette made of an altoids tin and empty palette pans filled by colors of my choice. Recently I was showing some students the wee set when one of them (Thanks, Bill!) took the cap from his water bottle and put it in the tin. Eureka! Six caps fit perfectly in the 2 3/8"x 2 3/4" size. I first taped them to the bottom but magnetic tape, sticky on one side, works a treat.

I had been looking for a way to help my beginning students make a color wheel successfully. Their travel kits, purchased for the class, had two reds, but one was warm and the other cool. Not adequate for the task. This tiny palette with the 3 primary colors and 3 secondary colors was the solution to my dilemma. I can keep the tins full for each class and save my students from an additional expense. I tested the colors and made a color wheel from them and am satisfied with the results. 

The tiniest altoid tins, 1/1/2'x 2 1/4", were given to me by another student. (Thanks, Debbie!) Two caps fit perfectly and if they are the larger ones, they fit so snugly there is no need for stickum. The caps I've collected come in two sizes. One is smaller in diameter and shallower than the other. The variety of caps fit in the different sizes of tins.

In the sample above, I used ultramarine blue and quinacridone burnt orange - actually 2/3 of the California Watercolor School's favorite triad - burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and yellow ochre.  The two colors are plenty giving me a warm, a cool and a gray when mixed together. The drawing was done with a Marvy Le Plume pen and I could have made it more travel-friendly if I'd used a water brush. Interestingly, today is Earth Day but that is not the motive for my collection, albeit a good one. I want to have the right tools for what I want to do and I confess to having an addiction to palettes.

Watercolor Musings: Green!

Watercolor Musings: Green!: "Greens in the landscape are so utterly lovely, especially in the spring. Because of their dominance in most landscapes and the variation in ..."

Green!

Greens in the landscape are so utterly lovely, especially in the spring. Because of their dominance in most landscapes and the variation in each hue amazingly complex, these lovely colors can be a very real challenge for the painter. Because so many of my students have expressed their frustration with green, I developed a workshop to address the problem.

First we mixed greens from blues, yellows and black:

Then we altered tube greens:

Then they matched greens in leaves. This sketchbook is from a workshop I taught in Tuscany. I had some painters who were just beginning and this was a nice way to begin.

Next I demonstrated the use of greens in trees. The example was from the same trip as the image above.

Finally, if time permits, we use the information in a landscape. This one was done on location at Rancho Los Alamitos, California.

The only way I know to figure something out is to go from the simple to the complex. The first step can be tedious if you don't pay attention to what you are doing and these charts can become valuable on location, especially for the grayed greens.

I LOVE painting trees so this workshop is a delight to teach!