Part 3, Project 2 Exercise: Mixing Greens 4

Photograph of bottle arrangement

Sketchbook page for testing colours

Final painting for Mixing Greens 4

I really enjoyed the way this exercise flowed from the previous one, having painted the first two bottles I was really keen to try more green mixing and putting the exercise learnings into practice. I tried to select bottles in various tones of green (I don't drink alcohol so my friends were happy to donate empty bottles!) Again as with the previous exercise I found having a scrap page to test the tones on before applying to my watercolour paper. Looking back at the scrap page I was interested to see how useful viridian was in the mixing of the appropriate colours, but looking further back to exercise 1 I can see just how many tones are based on combinations of viridian. The combinations used were viridian and burnt umber viridian and burnt sienna, viridian and yellow ochre, viridian and alizarin crimson, burnt umber and burnt sienna, viridian and ultramarine, viridian and sap green. I think the overlapping of the bottles meant I had more of a challenge for showing the bottles a viewed through glass.

Part 3, Project 2 Exercise : Mixing Greens 1

To begin with I found the instructions given in the course material utterly incomprehensible! I could see clearly form the diagram what the aim of the exercise was yet the method to get there seemed as the order of the individual statements was all jumbled up. I have to admit this exercise really appealed to my precise and ordered side! I loved progressing through and filling the boxes with a different hue each time. I did have a number of thoughts which I noted as I went along, firstly the vibrancy of the tone achieved by using a tiny amount of viridian with lemon yellow was amazing, to my eye it was almost like a manufactured colour and I was thrilled to see how I could really create that tone using the colours in my set - I enjoyed all of the tones through that first set and realised that by using "one brush full" to add to the viridian I could evenly regulate the grades of darkening tone. I adopted this approach with the rest of the tests and It seemed to work throughout. I also found that regularly changing my water kept the accuracy and authenticity of the colours enabling me to create a true paint swatch for future reference.

Mixing greens Exercise 1 - Page A

Another colour combination which I really was surprised about was the stunning combination of burnt Sienna and Viridian, the warmth, vibrancy and depth of this tone was simply stunning, and I already think I will be referring back to the mixing notes here to recreate those tones.

Mixing Greens 1 Page B

After completing the exercise using the colours recommended in the course material I moved on to experiment with some combinations of my own including Hoopers Green Light, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Intense Green, Emerald Green and Hookers Green Dark. The use of cadmium yellow pale seemed to create fairly pale yet saturated colours, some that look fairly manufactured, but also some that have depth of tone such as the combination of cadmium yellow pale and hookers green dark.