
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.

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.


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




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.




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”.





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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This has certainly been a very successful exercise. You have a whole lot of ready made references.