How I choose my colours. (Patreon)

Hi everyone,

I have been asked many times about the process I use to choose colours for my paintings so in this post I will share with you some of my methods.

All paintings vary and my method of choosing colours may change slightly with each painting. It’s only been in the last 18 months or so that I have been giving a lot more thought to the colours I choose for each of my paintings. In the past I used to rely on my intuition and I didn’t always get it right. I’d start painting without deciding on all of the colours I wanted to use. I began with the main colours and then I’d get out new colours as I thought I’d needed them. There was little pre-planning involved.

These days I think about my colours more before I begin painting. I think about the mood I want to create with my painting and I try to limit my palette as much as I can. Rather than introduce  another colour I now try to mix the colours I need from my pre-chosen limited palette. I try out the colours I’ve chosen on a piece of scrap paper first to see if they look good together. Often I’ll paint a study first just to make sure I’m on the right track.

1. Choose the ‘main’ colour first and build from there.

One of the ways I select my colours is to determine the local colour or the main colour of my subject first and then I look more closely at some of the colours I can see.

For example, the main colour of the rabbit below (taken by Stefan Fluck) is a soft brown/beige so when I painted this one the first thing I did was to look in my paint box for a colour that I thought might be similar. 

I rarely try to match colours exactly. A colour that is close will do. For this painting I decided to use Winsor and Newton’s Raw Umber as the main colour. I like to use transparent colours as much as I can to make sure my paintings glow with light and I thought Raw Umber would be a good choice because of its hue and because it is transparent. I could have also chosen Raw Sienna or even Brown Ochre. I knew that I could vary the colour of the fur by varying the value of the Raw Umber pigment. In some areas I would paint it on quite light and I could increase the pigment concentration in other areas to create some tonal variation.

I toyed with the idea of using Daniel Smith’s Buff Titanium but I like to try to use Winsor and Newton colours as much as possible to keep my tutorials consistent for you. I also prefer to use Winsor and Newton paints because most of them are pure/single pigments which makes the task of mixing colours simpler.

Once I’d chosen Raw Umber as the main colour I looked at the reference photo again and I could see that the rabbit had white fur running down the front. I knew I’d leave some white paper showing there but I needed a grey for the shadows. My favourite grey is a mixture of Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine but when I painted this painting I had recently bought my first tube of Antwerp Blue and I wanted to try it out on the background. So instead of getting two blues out and using French Ultramarine as well- I used Antwerp Blue and I mixed it with some Burnt Sienna to make my grey. I knew I could also use Burnt Sienna on some of the darker areas of the Raw Umber fur as well. So far I had chosen: Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna and Antwerp Blue.

To add some interest to the grey areas of my paintings I often drop in a little Winsor Violet. Even though I can’t really see violet anywhere on the reference photo I knew it would make some of the grey areas on the fur pop and I could use some of it in the ear as well.

So my colour choices for this painting now included all of these colours:

I liked the way they looked together and I knew all I needed to add was a little Lamp Black for the eye. I probably could have mixed the black from those colours but sometimes it’s easier to use pre-mixed black for such a small area. I try as much as I can these days to keep to a limited palette to keep everything cohesive and harmonious.

Another decision I had to make was the temperature of my painting. I had two warm colours and two cool colours. I know that it’s best to allow one temperature to dominate. So I decided to try to let the warm colours dominate.

The reference photo is only ever a guide to steer me in the right direction. I never try to paint all the different colours I see. It would be too laborious for me and besides I don’t want to produce an exact replica of the photo. What would be the point in that? I want to create something new and exciting to look at. I don’t wan’t to merely copy what I see.

2. Using the Colour Wheel and Colour Theory to Guide my Colour Choices.

For colour inspiration I will sometimes turn to my colour wheel and two books I have on colour theory and colour mixing.

The first book; Making Color Sing by Jeanne Dobie has a lot of great advice about mixing colours. Jeanne reminds us about the importance of transforming our subjects into an extraordinary painting rather than merely rendering what our eyes see.

The second book by Color Choices by Stephen Quiller has lots of information about different colour schemes and using the colour wheel to guide your choices. I refer to this book often. It has a detailed colour wheel in it and it helps me find what Quiller refers to as ‘true compliment colours.’ I have done a quick flick through this book here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/48259924

With the crab that I painted in 2021 I knew I wanted to use a complementary colour scheme. I thought I’d enhance the colours that I saw on the reference photo (brighten the yellow and brighten the violet). With a complementary colour scheme it’s a good idea to let one colour dominate because if you use both colours equally it can confuse the eye as each colour is competing against the other. So for this painting I allowed yellow to dominate. I also made use of some semi neutral colours with this painting by mixing the yellow with the violet. You can read more about semi neutral colours below.

A triadic colour scheme is also a good choice for a painting. A triadic colour scheme is one where you choose colours that are an equal distance from one another on the colour wheel. When two contrasting colours are mixed together they make gorgeous semi neutral colours that complement your painting.

I demonstrated the use of a triadic colour scheme when I painted the eucalyptus leaf painting below.

For this painting I chose Winsor Blue (red shade), Winsor Lemon and Winsor Red and the triadic colour combination produced a glorious, glowing result.

3. Utilize neutral and semi neutral colours as much as possible.

This is something I learned about last year and I try to remember to do this as often as I can.

For the first few years that I painted in watercolour I rarely mixed colours. I tended to use the colours straight out of the tube and if I did any mixing it was on the paper rather than on the palette. After reading Stephen Quiller’s book mentioned above I now see the importance of limiting my palette and mixing colours together to create a more cohesive painting. Semi neutral and neutral colours are made when you mix two compliments together. For example, if you mix the complementary colours yellow and violet together equally that will give you a neutral colour that is neither yellow nor violet (more of a grey). If you use more yellow you will get a semi neutral colour that is more yellow than violet. If you use more violet that will give you a semi neutral colour that is more violet than yellow. The semi neutral colours can be particular effective in a painting.

Quiller recommends using smaller amounts of your pure complementary colours and fill the larger areas with semi neutral colours. You can place the pure complementary colours in the focal point of your painting to draw the viewer’s eye there.

I tried to remember to make use of neutrals when I painted the background on my Magnolia painting.

I used only two colours to paint the magnolia painting: Winsor Green (blue shade) and Permanent Rose. When I painted the background I had to do a bit of adjusting. I loved the Winsor Green colour and I knew it would complement the Magnolias beautifully but if I used too much of it - it would overpower the painting and compete with Permanent Rose too much. I knew the key to success was to mix a neutral grey from the two colours and let that dominate the background. I included some ‘passages’ of the pure pigment (Winsor Green) around the Magnolias to enhance them.

4. Use free colour picking websites if you have no idea what colour to use.

Sometimes I’ll look at my reference photo and I can’t distinguish what a particular colour is. When that happens I have no idea where to start. Take for example this photo of my grandson Logan:

I was confused by his skin tones. Because I photographed him in the shade there wasn’t a lot of variation in the tonal values and I was concerned that my painting would appear flat because I wouldn’t be able to include a lot of contrast. To help me see all of the different hues in his skin I imported his photo into Photoshop and I used the eye dropper tool to pick out different colours so I could see them on their own.

I extracted the colours so I could compare the values and I pasted them onto a new file that I could send to my iPad. Then I used this to try to mix similar colours. It made the task a bit simpler for me.

Of course you don’t need expensive programmes like Photoshop installed on your computer to do this. There are quite a few free colour picker websites that will allow you to do the same thing.

Here is one: https://imagecolorpicker.com/en

You upload your photo and then you can use the tools to help isolate some of the colours.

Another simple tool you can create for yourself is a colour viewing card. Cut a small hole or a square in a piece of card or paper and hold it over your reference photo to help you isolate the different colours so you can see them better.

Final tips about choosing colours

Don’t be overwhelmed with all of the colours you see in your subject, instead take only what is important and then think about how you are going to connect those colours into the rest of the painting. Use the colour wheel to help you make colour choices and try to limit your colour choices for a more cohesive, harmonious and impactful painting.

I rarely try to match colours exactly as I see them on whatever it is I’m painting. I’m not a scientific or botanical painter and I rarely want to render my subject exactly as I see it.

Always remember that the colour or hue that you use is not as important as the value of the colour (hue) you are using. The value of the colour is how light or how dark you put it on the paper. If you want an area or shape to be a light value you mix water with it. If you want a dark value of the colour you are using you use it with less water mixed into it. Think of the values in a painting as a range of pigment concentrations. The variation in the values are what make or break a painting rather than the colours that you use. Value allows a colour to come forward or to retreat into the background. Make use of it to create impact. Colour is secondary and less important.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with colours. Try different combinations out on some scrap paper before you commit them to your painting. Mix them together to see the range of semi neutral colours you can utilise in your painting.

Make note of colour combinations that you love and use them in other paintings.

You don’t always have to mix colours on the palette first. Instead wet the paper and paint one colour on and then drop or charge in another colour into the first colour and let the water and paint work their magic together. You’ll be amazed at what you can produce without even trying. No other medium can compare to the wonder of watercolour. Enjoy it! Embrace it! Love it!

Update on Covid and me.

Thank you again for all of your kind get well messages! I'm slowly improving. I've been able to get some sleep the past two nights so that has made a difference. My doctor thinks I have pneumonia on top of everything (though I haven't been tested for it). I'm very weak but the coughing has subsided quite a bit. I'm shaky because of the medication I'm taking so that makes painting difficult which is why I spent some time and wrote this post. I'm eating well, drinking lots of water and resting through the day so hopefully each day I'll start to feel a bit stronger. Don't get sick! Avoid this horrible virus if you can. Huge hugs!

Louise

💕