Chapter 6 and 7

 

First a little extra: variations on gray

Taking up Viv’s idea from her feedback I placed my gray cards on varied  backgrounds.

The phtographs are not very good (also my cats were eager to play with the pieces), but the difference in the impression of the colour is still striking. Thank you, Viv, for the suggestion!

 

Chapter 6: Colour matching

6.1 Match a picture

This is a catalogue photograph of a cocoa fruit. I chose it because of the lovely red tones.

The small painting on the left (A5) was my checking instrument in the search for the colours. When I thought I had “got” one I filled it in. It proved very helpful for keeping track of the colours.

The red is my version of crimson with the addition of a little ultramarine, the shade down left was done with sea blue. I had to add more black than I thought to mix the darkest shade. The range of greens on the photograph is surprising, as always, and I do not think I got them all. For the dark gray in the twig I used red, ultramarine and black with very little yellow, for the light gray ultramarine with a little green and white. There is also a warm grey in the twig, for which I mixed red and green (leaf green from the tube). Of course with so many reds and greens there is good material for all sorts of greys.

 

6.2 Pattern using the colour palette

After I had drawn the lines with transparent oil pastel I noticed I could not see the spaces – so I added a thin pencil line to help.

 

Extra activity: variation of colours

I became aware a little late that my original colours were mostly complementary – red and green. So a couple of the suggested variations were not so promising.

Light and dark colours swapped in larger shapes with fewer lines. I think the changed spacing makes the real difference here.

I wanted to make a greater change in the painting, so I chose colours two steps away on the colour wheel.

The complementary colours are now blue and orange with tints and shades. It makes me think of cool surroundings like a swimming pool. After I had finished the painting I painted some shapes over with even

lighter tints and darker shades to get more contrast. I notice that I tend to lose this aspect, and the result can be boring even if the colours are nice enough – a very instructive experience.

 

I remembered that many years ago I tried colour matching with threads, inspired by Jan Messent’s “The Embroiderer’s Workbook” from 1988. I have still kept the cardboards on which I had mounted the results.

 

Chapter 7: Printing

7.1 Fruit/vegetable print

I cut a fennel in quarters lengthwise and printed with this. I like the  wavy lines of the sections and the way they can be combined to patterns, also the piece is big enough to paint a range of colours on it. As advised I used acrylics for this activity (unless otherwise indicated). 

The first two prints and the right one in the second row were done on my coloured papers.

For the other prints I used white paper. Some were painted over with a colour wash when dried, and I dabbed away the wet wash in parts with paper tissue.

 

	Left: printed on leftover cuts of Canson mi-teintes, glued  in my sketchbook. That was actually a way to use up leftover colour, a happy accident.

One more happy accident: the last drops of another palette

 

7.2 Potato print

After working with the fennel I found the potato a bit wet, but I left the pieces on a paper towel for some time.

	I found that a wash of background colour always added depth to the pattern.

 

7.3 Make repeat patterns with a card printing block

My choices from Chapter 5, not surprisingly:

The print was done on flipchart paper with a smooth and slightly absorbent surface which shows the details well.	Left: the printing blocks, cut from very strong cardboard, 2 mm thick, so cutting was  very hard on the fingers! I used the negative shapes as well and coated all four blocks with spray varnish for protection. They are quite sturdy.

	Left: After printing I rolled colour on the dried sheet with a foam roller (A4 strong office paper). The bell pepper shape is almost A6 in size and needs a big sheet of paper to form a pattern. Below right: A2 strong cartridge paper.
Above and below: Shapes and outlines on coloured paper A 4
	Above right: shapes and outlines on A3 brown paper (Kraft paper), outlines filled with watercolour
	A piece of rough off-white woodchip wallpaper, right (rough) side, size about A3. The prints are just recognisable. I brushed emerald ink  over the printed background and rolled dark red over the paper with a hard linoleum print roller. Finally I rubbed gold and metallic red wax crayon over it. I like this piece very much, it looks and feels like a textile.

	Left and below right: the peach (tree)  on coloured paper, A4.
Above: outlines printed over shapes, afterwards background and outlines were painted with watercolour
	Left: for each print on the dark green background I covered the block thickly with loosely mixed paint
The back side of woodchip wallpaper painted red, printed with very dark red, then washed with emerald ink. This is a detail, see the whole strip on the right with the finished A2 pepper sheet and some other prints.
	One of my coloured papers (wetted, painted, crumpled) with two upper left prints on dry paper and four others on wet paper. I also added more water to the printing colour and ended up with almost watercolour fluidity.

I found printing enormous fun – and I feel I have only scratched the surface of a huge range of possibilities. A hard piece of rubbing gum is currently waiting on my work table to get cut. I think it will make a good printing block. 

Acrylics have never been my favourite colours, but during this activity I got better acquainted with their possibilities and quite warmed up to them.