pretty colors

Spurred by a recent email thread I was involved in, I started experimenting with my stash of watercolor paints.  I was complaining about how a particular paint, Daniel Smith Quin. Gold, wasn't very vibrant.  A perfectly reasonable guy, who obviously knew what he was talking about, called me on that.  Post-experiment, I see now why we had different experiences with this paint.  In short, I was using crappy paper.  I also realized why I've been strugging so much with watercolor as a medium in recent years.  In short, I've been using crappy paper.  Watercolor was my first medium past crayons.  I've been using this stuff for years, and I used to be pretty good at it.  Then I took a long hiatus from painting in general, and when I came back I focused more on acrylics than watercolors.  I dabbled a bit, but I was getting pretty bad results, and I got frustrated and turned off.

Lesson learned.  If I want to paint in my journals (I do), I need to make myself books with watercolor paper.  If I continue to work on books that don't have good paper, I will continue to be frustrated.  Not that one cannot paint on any kind of paper - one can, and I know of several very accomplished and talented artists who paint on print paper, cover stock, etc. with beautiful results - but I really like true watercolor paper, sizing and all, preferably cold press.  The real irony here is that while I regularly make journals for others, for pay, some of them with watercolor paper, I've yet to make myself a journal.  Cobbler's barefoot kids?

The second thing I learned was that I tend buy tubes of paint because they are pretty colors, but I don't pay much attention to mixable sets.  For example, these are the tubes of paint I bought at Daniel Smith the last time I was in Seattle, last spring:

Pretty, aren't they?  But they don't really work with any of the paints I already owned, nor did I even consider if they might.  (Note the gorgeous, intense Quin Gold...)

I really have never made a study of the transparency, lightfastness, or mixability of any of the paints I own.  But I'd like to.  So I started by making samples of just the colors that are in my travel paint box.  I did the samples on three different papers.  In a Rag and Bone journal, which has fairly heavy, smooth, but unsized pages, on a 4x6 Indian  Village card, and in the little sample pamphlet book I made to play in.  The pamphlet book is the left-over ends of some paper I bought to make a journal for someone else. (See?)  I don't remember exactly what the paper is, but I'd guess either Arches or Strathmore student grade, 140#, cold press.

Here are the results of those experiments (click the image for larger):

This is the Rag and Bone book.  This paper absorbs the color, not allowing it to float at all.  Wet in wet techniques don't work at all, just make a soggy mess of the page.  This might work ok for quick paint sketching, but I think this book is better suited for pen/wash sketching than trying to use watercolors.  At least for me. Notice how the Quin gold (4th color from the top in the right-most column) is washed out.  Notice how all the colors are washed out.

This is the Indian Village Card.  I love the texture of this paper for painting, though it is a little too bumpy to be a good pen-drawing surface.  I took these cards to Europe with me on my last trip, intending to paint and send postcards home to friends.  It was too cold to be out painting, I decided, so they came home again, still blank.

I use larger sheets of this paper for acrylic collage sometimes.  This paper is somewhere between 140# and 300#, and can take a lot of wet media abuse.  I love how the pigments pool in the texture of the surface.  I love the vibrancy of the colors on this paper.

 

This is my new little sample book, where I started to label the colors and do some experimental mixes.  I have a 12 (full) pan Schmincke travel box, but I must have finally tossed the map of the colors after it bopped around my studio for months, but the folks at Dick Blick were nice enough to email me the list of colors that come with the box this morning, so I'll go back and write those in tonight.  I took out one pan and squeezed in a few empty half pans that I filled from tubes to add to the set.  That said, I'm not really very happy with this assortment of colors.  I actually think it is too many.  The box is a bit big and heavy, to be sure.  I'd like to have a 6 or 8 pan set, with the *right* colors, but I need to figure out what those are for me.

And that's where I was going here, with the first couple of triad experiments.  I deduced the one on the bottom after making the DS sampler that I posted first.  I had a nice rich red, and a nice rich yellow, I just needed a blue.  I found a tube of W&N Winsor Blue that seemed like it would work.  Not bad.  I'm not sure  if these are colors I see a lot in my life, though.  Too much humidity here by the ocean, and few things are quite this saturated.  I was intrigued by a description of an "old master's" triad mentioned in that email thread I referred to, so that's the second set.  I like these.  The look like my memories of Italy (of course they do...).  I have a bunch of photos of Italy from my last two trips that I'd like to paint from, so I may start with these and see how far I can push just three colors.  The "red" is really more brown than red, though, and that just won't do for images of Venice.

I've started a survey of the other paints I have, and what I think might be missing from my collection.  With a little more focused purchasing, a bit of attention to paper, and a lot more experimentation, I think I may learn to love watercolors again.

Comments

[Mom]

I'm loving this extended art lesson. It has made me more conscious of my own art . . . putting words together. I unpacked a box of old journals today. Mine don't have watercolor paper either, or even any drawings, or at least not many, and not very good ones, but they do have lots of words. And as I read them, I was transported back to the day I wrote the entry.

I need to remember that. So much time has passed since I wrote my thoughts. Thanks for inspiring me once again.

[Ruth]

I'm being fascinated with these conversations, and starting to dab about with my colors... and papers, and realizing about paints, Just How Little I Know.
I love times of serious Beginner's Mind; and am taking Kate's online watercolor class.

It's good to see you, at least by recycled-electrons, a little more often!

[Linda]

Oh wow -- it's neat to see your experiments with paper and color. Looking at the rag and bone journal, I can see why you might not have liked the DS quin gold so much! :-) I like your play with the triads, too, and think it is a good idea to look for a triad (or small palette) that represents the local color of where YOU are, rather than someone else's idea. It will be interesting to follow along with your experiments!

[Nancy]

Very interesting indeed. I've tried the old masters triad - it's on my blog - but I think my yellow ocher must be different from Steve's - maybe I'm having the same problem you had with the quin gold!

[meriko]

I can't wait to see you paint more. This is the perfect followon to the intro chat at lunch.... thank you 8)