Spring color palette with grey
I am impatiently waiting for spring, and while it is still cold, windy and cold with snow covering most of the soil outdoors, I paint spring. I paint spring using my spring color palette which is pretty much always the same. My spring color palette includes different grey tones, as well, but camera cannot keep up with my soft color transitions and frequently sees grey as blue. I hope, the spring color palette can be perceived as you look at my paintings on your device. As we well know, any device has its own settings, thus, impacting heavily what one sees.
Color palette also changes
I have had many favorite color stretches over many decades while painting. I have had totally grey phases, and very blue, very green and bright multicolor painting periods also. As an artist, I never stay the same because everything changes and our hate-love relationship with colors changes, as well. I love balanced color palette and use it whenever possible. Phone camera wasn’t designed to get things look real, but rather enhance everything. It also destroys correct perspective regardless of how you adjust it.
Imagination at work
Spring color palette is vivid and rebirth-affirming. I’m very sure if you live in different climates, your color palette is quite distinctive from mine. I don’t paint mountains or oceans, just because I don’t see them here. I also don’t rely on photos, but rather on imagination and visual memory. That makes things easier for me. Simplicity which excites is a good term to describe these paintings.
Saturated colors
The old house was painted in 2018. Apparently, watercolor works much better on thick Arches watercolor paper. Layering colors is easier and the entire painting has more saturated values. Pictures which I took with iPhone back then, are rather dark and some look even blurry. I should get new pictures of all paintings which I still have, but that’s too much of work and too much of re-posting and editing. I did, however, take new pictures of the old rural house.
Old house watercolor painting in spring colors, 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm
Still grey and Road into distance paintings
Still grey with birch tree and the Road into distance are new watercolor paintings. They are created using the same color palette, but I couldn’t get a good image of the large one, the Road into distance painting, It’s a fantastic, large size watercolor with beautiful color transitions. I would say, it has gentle and soft spring colors and all values are simply perfect. If you ever happen to be in Ajax, Ontario, you could stop by and see with your own eyes how no picture can ever match the original painting.
Road into distance, 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm watercolor painting
If you just started painting with watercolor
If you just started using watercolor, always test your colors. Nowadays, the color name alone doesn’t mean much. I have 3 Payne’s grey paints from different manufacturers, and they range from rather blue to very black color. The same goes for Sap green and Green gold. Burnt sienna and Raw sienna are very different colors from different manufacturers. All blue colors can be anything. Yellow is usually quite weak color from the student grade sets.
Still gre, spring landscape painting with birch, watercolor
What you can do on your watercolor paper
You should also test watercolor paper. It’s not advisable using anything lighter than 140 lb for watercolor painting. Non-cotton paper generally buckles, warps and doesn’t absorb neither water, nor pigment. Therefore, you cannot expect watercolor wash to be perfect, adjust it with paper towel. If there’s too much water on such paper, it settles down at the lowest point due to gravity and you see the “blooms” which look good in abstract art, but wrong in improper area. It’s very easy to lift paint from non-cotton paper. It’s easier for beginners because you can correct many aspects of your painting.
Don’t expect the same outcome
Cotton paper, like Arches allows achieving fantastic washes. It absorbs paint and pigment, therefore, one needs to plan painting. You can stretch and soak it before painting or use water on it before you start painting. I didn’t use Arches this time, but Strathmore 400 series paper. Getting paint on it is more difficult than lifting it. The number of layers is limited. If you use Arches (at least 140 lb. paper), number of layers is quite unlimited. Arches 300 lb. paper doesn’t buckle at all. It’s like wood, thick, firm and allows using and creating great effects. It’s very expensive at the moment, though.
Thanks, talk to you later in spring again! This post is different, thanks for reading!