Sennen Cove beach at sunset

Recently I happened to be talking to one of the rare people who actually take time to read this blog (occasionally), and they said something along the lines of: "[Almost] no-one reads your blog so you should post some of your paintings -- no-one will see them!" Point taken, although not exactly encouraging... (Apparently, I post mostly rants?) So here is one example of a painting.

It is what I consider to be my eighth (beginner's) painting and was completed last summer during a very warm week off work. It is largely based on a photograph that I took on the beach at Sennen Cove in West Cornwall, England in September 2008. (This was my first visit to Sennen Cove -- I have been back many times since, as it is such an amazing location in all weathers and times of the year.) I suppose it could depict a beach in a number of places on the planet in all honesty, as nothing particular shouts Sennen Cove.

I was thinking: when one's eye is drawn to a picture, it is due to the subject matter, or the composition, or the lighting, or the colour, or the artistry, or some combination of all of these. Not -- ooh, I wonder whether the painter used "Brand X" paint, or "Brand Y" brushes? So I can't really understand why people spend so much time discussing (arguing?) the merits of different brands, as it is the final product that matters. Whatever works for you. (In the case of watercolour, the paper itself is the most apparent feature. How many people would be able to identify the manufacturer by looking at a finished painting? Would they like the painting less if they discovered that it was painted on paper that they considered to be inferior?)

Time to nail my colours (paints?) to the mast, so to speak! On the basis of previous blog postings, it would be hypocritical not to say that I used Cotman watercolours. I did -- exclusively. Not that it really matters, but I would have used Intense Blue and Cadmium Red Pale Hue for the sky, Intense Blue, Viridian Hue, Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue and Cadmium Red Pale Hue for the sea; and different combinations of Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and Yellow Ochre for the beach. I can't remember details of the brushes (I have too many), but I'm sure I would have used at least one Escoda Versatil round at some stage, as they work well for me without costing a small fortune.

The paper was Ken Bromley Practice Paper, AKA Fabriano Watercolour paper (cut down to one eighth of an Imperial sheet). This is 130 lbs in thickness, supposedly 25 percent cotton, and comes in a Not surface -- probably its most distinctive feature. I used moistened brown gummed paper tape to help stretch it and fix it to an A4-sized piece of 6 mm thick plywood that had previously been painted white. Ken Bromley Masking Fluid was used for lighter areas in the waves: I had no problem removing it when it was dry. I was fairly pleased with how the painting turned out, although I don't like the regular texture of the paper, and I had to be careful to avoid overworking it. (I find that Bockingford paper is more amenable to my present lack of technique and experience.)

A watercolour secondary palette

When I first got interested in watercolours in the late 1980s, one of the many things that I found bewildering at the time was the question of which colours I needed? My sole reference book back then listed a number of manufacturers supplying a multitude of paints, but had no clear recommendation about what a beginner should start with!  I remembered from distant school days that red, yellow and blue were (supposed to be) primary colours, so why did I need a palette containing a dozen (or more) different paints?

I have since learnt that in watercolour painting, the use of the split primary palette is fairly well established. This takes my three primary colours listed above, and splits them into cool and warm -- so a cool red and a warm red, a cool yellow and a warm yellow, and a cool blue and a warm blue. But then it seems to get complicated when you start mixing them together. For example, I guess that green should be mixed from a cool yellow and a cool blue, but what if a warm colour is used instead?

Presumably with practice it becomes second nature to mix colours using a split primary palette? However, this does seem to raise the bar -- unnecessarily? -- for beginners, who may struggle with colour theory as it is often presented. Perhaps this helps to explain why some people use palettes with a large number of colours, as it is too much of a chore to mix them from primaries? (I have ignored the discussion of staining and granulating pigments, as that is another dimension!)

In the course of browsing the Handprint pages, I discovered the idea of using a secondary palette instead. This made a lot of sense to me. No longer did I need to worry about whether I needed to use the cool or warm primary colour, because the primaries had been changed to three that I recognised from computer colour printing (cyan, magenta, yellow [CMY]), and three secondary colours had been introduced (red-orange, green, blue-violet). Furthermore, the gamut of the palette had been increased -- especially for greens.

I was then pleased to find out that the selection of paints in my Cotman Sketchers' Pocket Box readily lent themselves to a secondary palette: Cadmium Yellow Hue would be primary yellow, Cadmium Red Pale Hue would be secondary red-orange, Alizarin Crimson Hue would be primary magenta, Ultramarine would be secondary blue-violet, Intense Blue would be primary cyan, and Viridian Hue would be secondary green.

Further reading of the Handprint pages led to more specific recommendations of primaries and secondaries. Restricting myself to the Winsor and Newton Cotman range, I replaced Cadmium Yellow Hue with Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue, and Alizarin Crimson Hue with Permanent Rose to closer match the suggestions. The Cotman Intense Blue is PB15 rather than the PB15:3 (Phthalo Blue Green Shade) that is suggested, but I was happy with that. If I was fussy about single pigment paints, then Winsor Yellow and Winsor Orange (Red shade) from the W&N Professional range would need to replace the Cotman Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue and Cadmium Red Pale Hue respectively. (I have since found that the Daniel Smith Transparent Pyrrol Orange gives a closer match to Cadmium Red Pale Hue than Winsor Orange (Red Shade).)

I have been regularly using my Cotman secondary palette since late 2014. Even though I was a little unsure at first as to whether the [CMY subtractive] primaries would work as expected, I have been delighted with the outcome. I have had no trouble at all in mixing the colours I want. (See the crude colour wheel at the top.) My mind has not been cluttered by "rules" of what I should (or should not) mix with what. By alternating the arrangement of primaries and secondaries in the palette, I can easily find the complementary when I need to tone down a colour or mix a chromatic grey. (The row of pans at the bottom corresponds to the row of colour swatches at the top.)

So my question has now become: "Why is the split primary palette still often taught to beginners in exclusion to anything else?" (Or to put it another way, why don't computer and commercial printers use split primary colours? Hmm...)

Watercolour reference cards

Perhaps this is something that comes with experience, but when starting out with watercolours, something that made the learning curve a little steeper for me was the difficulty in being able to correctly identify dried paint colours in their pans. Dark colours especially can look very similar when dry. Winsor and Newton now print colour names and pigment information on their exterior of their pans -- which helps somewhat -- but even then, this does not show when the pans are in position in the palette.

One approach might be to arrange the pan colours in specific locations in the palette, so that with regular practice it becomes instinctive as to where a particular paint is located. However, this scheme discourages the use of new and alternate colours in the course of skill development and experimentation.

My solution has been to produce "watercolour reference cards" to fit inside the paint box. This serves a couple of purposes. Firstly, the card clearly shows the position of each pan colour in relation to the others. Secondly, it acts as a (small) colour swatch, permitting decisions to be made on whether the paint is a good starting point for a desired colour.

I use a small pad of Cotman 90 lb Not paper to make my reference cards. I measure a strip to fit inside the Cotman Sketcher's Pocket Box, and then use a stencil cut from a strip of clear plastic (long sleeve shirt collar packing) to draw a number of square swatch boxes in HB pencil. (This saves the trouble of measuring and marking out the squares individually -- see the photo.) I then label each box with the paint it will contain, and then paint the swatch in each.  When all the swatches are done, I cut out the strip to make the reference card and place it inside the paint box.

Even with 90 lb paper, I have found that it is possible to paint swatches on both sides of the paper. So if you are organised enough to have a couple of combinations of  preferred pans, it might be only a matter of flipping over the reference card to ring the changes!

In praise of Cotman watercolours

Winsor and Newton's Cotman range of watercolour paints has been available for several decades, and complements the well-regarded Artists' watercolour paints from the same manufacturer.  In the UK, Cotman is around a third of the price of the artists' range. One might think that Cotman paints are strictly student-grade, and unsuitable for "serious" painting -- but  some superb work can be found on the Internet, produced using Cotman paints. Indeed, W & N used to claim that these paints are made to the same standards as the artists' range, but use less expensive pigments.

The range comprises 40 colours, of which 16 (40 percent) are single pigment, 20 (50 percent) are two-pigment, and four (ten percent) are three-pigment paints. The paints are currently available as half-pans, 8 ml tubes and 21 ml tubes.

It is a little puzzling why some Internet commentators get a bit "funny" about Cotman paints. Perhaps because these paints give some ranges of artists' watercolours a good run for their money? One person even went as far as dumping their half-pans into a container of water after trying them out! (If you want to keep the plastic half-pans, the paint tablets drop out with very little effort in my experience.) I have several tubes of W & N Artists' watercolours, and I confess that I struggle to see how they are dramatically better than Cotman -- i.e., three times better on price -- but this may be down to my lack of practice?

I wonder whether the clue is in the brand name? John Sell Cotman was a nineteenth century English painter, so perhaps there is a suggestion that Cotman watercolours are best used for landscapes in cooler climates? Therefore, if you want strong, vibrant colours, then Cotman paints are not for you...

Should you be thinking about dipping your toe into the world of watercolour and your budget is constrained -- and you live in the UK -- then Cotman paints are worth considering. They are good value for money, and can be found in most high streets (all but the smallest outlets of WH Smiths, for example). The Cotman Sketcher's Pocket Box (shown on the middle right in the photograph above) makes a great starter set for a modest outlay: more of which anon...

(Disclaimer: I am in no way connected with Winsor and Newton, except as a satisfied customer!)