The basic theory of colours in watercolour painting

by Tissa Hewavitarane

When I began painting as a student I bought the usual paint box with 12 colours. At the beginning I was using small brushes. As I began to paint more boldly using larger brushes the paint box became completely inadequate. I could not get enough output from a student paint box.

The palette attached to the boxes were also too small so I soon moved on to use tube colours and a larger palette to go with them, which gave me a complete new freedom to paint. The next vexed question was the difference between the expensive quality paints which most books insist you to buy and the cheaper ones for students.

Many people have the idea that the cheaper quality paints would somehow fade away. Most manufacturers who make both types of paint say the permanent colours would last long. The main difference in the two ranges is the time taken to grind a colour and, of course, some of the more expensive pigments in the artist's quality are replaced by reliable modern substitutes. It is important to buy from a reputed firm as it is unlikely that such a manufacturer would ruin the name by selling poor quality paint. I do enjoy using any colour with complete abandon squeezing out plenty of paint, using on wet paper to get exciting and soft rich reflections.

Using minimum colours

Whenever I paint I try to cut down the number of colours to the bone and then use the minimum colours to finish a painting. It is important to complete a painting with two or three colours. Observe the painting reproduced here. I have completed the painting with a limited number of colours. I have used green throughout the picture. Light and dark greens keep the eye moving back in the picture towards the focal point (the hut). Everything the sun hits becomes more intense in colour, whereas the objects in shadow are correspondingly cool.

Note the white light reflecting on the hut. The white space is kept open without applying any colours on the paper. In watercolour painting white is not used at all to show highlights. The first thing before you even start to paint is to learn to compare the various greens with each other. Green ranges from nearly blue right through the near yellow. There are cool greens and warm greens. Most artists including myself work better with a limited number of colours.

One soon gets to know them intimately and instinctively how they react with each other, rather like having a few true friends as opposed to many acquaintances. Observe the figure I have introduced to make the picture more live. A man is seated near the hut. Figures can be used in different ways to give life, movement and scale to a scene. Nothing can quite satisfy an artist to indicate so convincingly as a tiny figure dropped in the right place. Notice the figure I have painted has no details. It is a light wash with pale colours. The scene depicts a village hut on a hillside surrounded by huge green trees.

Testing for granulation

Many artists usually test the granulation or sediment of a colour right on a large painting as they paint it. But you can test your colours by putting them down in a rectangle or a bar at a time. To do your own test brush a bar of clear water on dry paper. Lay one colour at one end, and into the water wash, with a different brush lay the second colour into the opposite end of the bar. Hold the paper flat for a few moments and then rock it back and forth.

Dropping rich colours

There is no experience more exhilarating than dropping rich colours on to wet paper. Let yourself go fearlessly. Always have a gentle slope and the gravity to help you, which can be rather like swimming with the current. It's so much less effort and you'll need less strokes.

The technique is ideal for doing such things such as cloudy skies, mist and surging surf, but do not attempt to do the whole painting in wet-in-wet, it will just look out of focus.

It's much more effective when the soft edges are contrasted with sharp edged areas after the paper has dried. When running colours on to a saturated paper be sure they are quite intense since they will dry lighter. The appeal of this painting related to this article lies in the delicate transition from strong colours of the picture to pale delicate tints.

You will observe painting trees is to look again simply the tones and colours to be used especially as they get further into the distance.

Do the absolute minimum characterised detail and stop before you overwork them. Do practise these techniques although they probably won't come off at first.

It is always safer to have a separate piece of paper by your side so that you can try the effect to see if you have got just the right amount of paint in the brush before you put it on the painting. All the techniques combined in one painting will provide a whole armoury of textural contrasts.