Creative Plan – Watercolour Paints

This was not so much an exercise in watercolour usage but in colour exploration. It’s something I keep trying to push myself to be brave about and go all out. My taste is very conservative and using multiple colours in one design is not an instinctive thing for me.

So when you get lost in a sea of colours and dont know where to start, this is a fun and suprisingly effective method to try.

My Winsor & Newton watercolour collection

I made a list of all my watercolours, numbered them all, then drew up a grid and randomly filled in each square with the numbers, allocating 4 colours per pattern design.

Randomly assigning all my colours to create a grouping for each pattern

Patterns that were again randomly assigned to the colour groupings

As mentioned above, this ended up being more successful than I could imagine. When looking at the groupings they just seemed so uncomplimentary, but there didn’t seem to be a “bad batch” amongst them.

Results

Purple Lake, Yellow Ochre, Sepia, Sap Green

Aqua Green, Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Light Red

Cadmium Yellow Pale, Ivory Black, Dioxazine Violet, Indigo

Smalt (Dumont), Raw Umber, Rose Dore, Burnt Umber

The only thing that I dictated was that with some patterns I allocated the smallest brush or shape to the strongest colour so that they wouldn’t dominate the entire design. It was important that there was balance and harmony with all the colours.

Viridian Green, Payne’s Grey, Cerulen Blue, Lemon Yellow

Cobalt Deep Green, Cadmium Deep Red, Indian Yellow, Hooker’s Green Light

Perylene Violet, Olive Green, Vandyke Brown, Ultramarine

Emerald Green, Cadmium Red Pale, Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Violet

I also decided not to overlap or blend the colours – despite that being the beauty of watercolours, leaving them pure or untouched is also a refreshing change and lets each colour “sing”.

Prussian Blue, Lamp Black, Indian Red, Permanent Rose

Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Payne’s Grey, Intense Blue

Cadmium Yellow Pale, Sanguine Red, Hooker’s Green Dark, Cobalt Green Deep

Dioxazine Violet, Brown Ochre, Turquoise, Indian Yellow

Winsor Deep Red, Cadmium Orange, Cobalt Blue, Chromium Black

Anyway, I dont think I’m anymore confident with choosing colours on my own, but now I have this great back up method to pick exciting colour combinations.

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