More Colour wheels and templates - mixing opposites to create neutrals

Colour wheels take a bit of drawing up, especially as they get more complicated. I use a compass with an ink ruling pen adapter to draw them, and I like to leave a bit of space between each section so the paint doesn't run together.

Here are a couple you may like to choose from to try doing yourself. Each has 18 spaces around the outside. There is no need to have 18 tubes of paint to create these outside colours - it can be done with 8 or less placed carefully at the appropriate place around the circle and then mixed together in different ratios to create the secondary colours in between.

There is a link to the jpeg on my website here so you can download and print it onto watercolour paper and paint is with your own paints.

This one was painted using a small palette of two yellows (Quinacridone Gold and Hansa Yellow Medium), Phthalo Green, Two blues (Phthalo Blue GS and Ultramarine) and three reds (Quinacridone Rose, Pyrrol Crimson and Pyrrol Scarlet. The other reds, oranges, purples, green and turquoise around the outside were all painted with these pigments, then the opposite colours mixed together to create the tertiaries through the middle.

18 colour wheel with 8 mixed opposites creating dozens of neutrals.

Template for 18 colour wheel with 8 mixed opposites

Here is the template for the wheel above - it has 18 colours around the outside and space to mix 8 tertiaries  through the middle section.

Click here to see more about it in my website, or here to link to a jpeg that you can print.

Template for 18 colour wheel with 6 mixed opposites

This version is a little simpler as it has less spaces for the opposite mixtures through the middle.

To print this one click here.

Warm and Cool Primary colour wheel with template

Template for warm and cool red, yellow and blue
mixes wheel.

Colour wheels can take a bit of drawing up, but can be a great way to learn about your colours. This colour wheel allows you to see the green, purple and orange secondary colours you can make by mixing just 6 primary colours together in separate pairs.

You need a warm and a cool yellow, a warm and a cool blue and a warm and a cool red. It is helpful if your red is a rose or magenta or carmine colour that washes down to a pink so you can create lovely clear purples. It is also helpful if your yellows are not too close together - one a lemon or mid yellow, the other more on the orange side. Decide whether you are going to follow the key on the left as I have below or the key on the right and stick to it throughout.

Paint your primary colours into their labelled sections, then begin to mix each pair as they sit around the circle, adding a little of one colour to the other as you gradually move around the circle. For example, you may start at the top with Y1 and mix a little R2 and paint the next section, then add a little more R2 and paint the next section and so on. Or start my mixing an orange that sits equally between Y1 and R2 and paint that in the middle first.

Mine below is created using

• Y1 Quinacridone Gold, Y2 Hansa Yellow Medium
• R1 Pyrrol Scarlet, R2 Quinacridone Rose
• B1Ultramarine Blue, B2 Phthalo Blue RS

Warm and Cool red yellow and blue colour wheel.

There is more information on this chart on my website here, or just click here to link to a jpeg so you can print this onto watercolour paper and have a go.

Once you've done this you will have a great understanding of how six of your colours mix in pairs. Notice how the warm red and cool blue don't make purples but interesting red earth hues - very useful! And the warm yellow and warm blue make the most dull but often realistic greens.

Next perhaps explore what would happen if you add a bit of red to you bright greens.

Cockatoo Island Sketching

I went back to Cockatoo Island on Saturday to meet the Urban Sketchers after their two day workshop, and did a bit more sketching. I have no idea what these various machines do but they are so interesting to draw. I'll add the ones from January again as well as Saturday's March visit. All done in Moleskine watercolour notebooks, A5 size, with watercolour and some pen.

A rusted structure near the ferry. I love those granulating colours!

This was painted on Saturday. The sky behind us was very threatening but looking towards the bridge was fine.

An abandoned machine in one of the large warehouses.

This was painted on my first trip to the island in January. I love the minimal colour scheme of this view from inside the large warehouse.

Another machine of unknown purpose...

This machine is located out in the open near a bar. I painted this on Saturday and really enjoyed dripping in the rust colour.

The colours on the walls are amazing.

This was painted in January once again in the main warehouse. It was very hot that day so I painted inside. This is a wall with some ladder sections attached.

Another wall in one of the large warehouses.

Painted in January, this is typical of the many buildings that have seen many uses. Doors and windows are often closed in, covered up, repainted or changed in other ways.

I'll keep going back to this interesting place. I am doing some abstract oil paintings of some of the amazing locations.

Travelling light with colour

There are so many ways you can carry some colour with you when you are out and about. Some are so light and slim you can have them with you all the time. Others are more suitable for a planned painting kit. I have a set up for both - a portable kit I keep in my handbag and a more comprehensive kit that I take with my on planned sketching trips or travels. Here are a few ideas...

Coloured pencils - you can have a few coloured pencils with you in a small pencil case. Make them watercolour pencils and take a water-brush and you increase your options immediately.

Use water-colour pencils to make a tiny colour palette in the back of a sketch book on on a separate sheet of watercolour paper. Carry a travel brush or water-brush with you and you can wash in some colour with ease.

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  A water-soluable pencil palette

  

  Just a touch of a brush gives you a wash of colour.

  
  

You can buy paper impregnated with colour from Peerless, who have been making their transparent watercolours since 1885! The sheets were originally designed to tint black and white photographs. They can be cut up and stuck onto a paper palette, into a sketch book or a piece of plastic film.

Peerless transparent watercolours made into a palette. The colour has been washed in behind, then plastic contact applied, then the dark Peerless colours pasted on top.



Daniel Smith make 'try it dot' kits with many of their colours. You could make your own tiny palette with a drop or two of your favourite tube watercolours on a sheet of watercolour paper or plastic. Allow to dry and slip it into your sketch book.

Daniel Smith Try It Dots.

Or you can buy or make up small a travel palette with your favourite water-colour paints. Buy the half pans or buy empty pans and fill them from your own tubes.

Pocket palette made in Italy from Arters.com.sg This little cutie is painted black on the outside and has a thumb-ring. It is set up with 12 colours but 15 can be squeezed in with a bit of a fiddle :-)

Tiny hinged tin with 6 full pans.

An Art Basics 12 colour half pan palette with 14 colours and a Pocket Palette with 14 colours, all set up and ready to go.   The one on the left has a thumb-ring on the back. 

Update 21/6/2014: The colours in both of these are my suggested 'ultimate mixing colours' - Buff titanium (Daniel Smith), Hansa Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Gold PO49 (Daniel Smith), Pyrrol Scarlet, Pyrrol Crimson, Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine, Cerulean Chromium PB36, Phthalo Blue GS, Goethite (Daniel Smith), Burnt Sienna PBr7, Raw Umber PBr7 and Jane's Grey, which is a custom mix of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine. You can see this palette painted out on my website here. Available for AU$65 plus shipping if you want one from me filled with artist quality colours.

Small tin with 12 half pans.

There are a number of other small portable palettes for watercolour, or you could have one hand-made in brass like this one - my travel palette, which is lacquered brass and has a thumb-ring on the other side

 

There are so many ways to get some colour into your sketches and still travel light. 

Happy sketching!