Colour Wheel

Last week I wrote about how I explored my watercolour palette to figure out how I could recreate the Daniel Smith suggested colours for Toulouse, using Burnt Sienna Light or Indian Red, which share the same base pigment, because I didn’t have the colours they were suggesting in my palette.

Colour Triad with Burnt Sienna Light

As a follow on from that, I wanted to explore a colour triad using Burnt Sienna Light, which is one of the foundational colours I’ll need for the Urban Sketcher’s Symposium in Toulouse. The pigment used in Burnt Sienna Light is the same as the majority of the colours suggested by Daniel Smith to convey the buildings in the “pink city”.

My Primary Red

Initially I wasn’t sure whether to count Burnt Sienna Light as a red or a yellow primary in my colour wheel, because it’s more of an earthy orange, and is a little bit of both. But I did a little research, and the consensus seems to be it would count as an earth-tone red.

Burnt Sienna Light is a blend of two transparent pigments (PR101 Synthetic Red Iron Oxide, and (PO48 Quinacridone Orange). The Red Iron Oxide is the more dominant pigment, and this is what makes the Burnt Sienna Light redder than the standard Burnt Sienna, which is a brown earth pigment.

My Primary Blue

I wanted to use Manganese Blue Hue as my primary blue because of its transparency. I have this as my staple sky blue in my palette. I use it in place of the more well-known Cerulean Blue, because it’s more vibrant and lively. It seems to have a brighter glow to it – almost luminous.

When I was finalising a static palette at the beginning of this year, my preference was to choose as many transparent and granulating colours as possible. I’ve deviated from that with some of the other colours, but with Manganese Blue Hue I’ve got a colour that’s transparent and granulating. This is unusual for a Phthalo-based colour, of-course the downside is that it’s medium staining. It’s probably better suited to painting water, but I like using it for the sky, to get a brighter bluer feel to it, with more granulation than it possible with Cerulean.

If I decide to choose an analogous colour selection from the Burnt Sienna Light side of the colour wheel, using this primary blue would create a stark, but highly complimentary, contrast to the earthiness of the reds in the Burnt Sienna Light.

The only downside to having the Burnt Sienna Light as my primary red is that it’ll be impossible to create purples or violets, what you end up with is more earthy tone. But out of all colours in the wheel, the one’s I choose to use the least are violets and purples, so it’s not an issue. Whereas I can’t live without oranges and turquoises.

False Start with my Primary Yellow

Initially I thought that Natural Sienna would be the best option for this colour triad, because it’s another earth tone and would work well with the Burnt Sienna Light. The Daniel Smith Monte Amiata Natural Sienna sits between the bright sunny yellow of Yellow Ochre, but has the transparency of Raw Sienna.

But the colour wheel turned out dull and uninspiring on that side of the colour wheel. This is because both of these colours are earth tones and aren’t within the primary colour spectrum.

The Natural Sienna has a brown pigment base so it’s already desaturated, and that desaturation is elevated when mixed with the earthy red of Burnt Sienna Light. So I had to rethink my Primary Yellow for this triad.

Switching Natural Sienna for Quin Gold

Second time around I switched out the Natural Sienna for Quin Gold. This is a highly transparent two-pigment earth yellow combing PO48 (Quinacridone Burnt Orange) with PY150 (Nickel Azo Yellow). The Burnt Sienna Light and Quin Gold both have the PO48 pigment in common, so they create an effortless and harmonious pairing – perfect for an analogous colour palette. Using them together, and even layering them, won’t cause muddy colours, because of their compatibility and the fact that they’re both transparent.

A triad with these three colour complement each other beautifully, and create a vibrant combination that’s full of light and life. The orange side of the colour wheel is light and lively, and there’s some desaturated greys, browns, and greens to balance out the tight harmony on the other side of the colour wheel. It seems like a really well balance triad to me.

Using this Colour Triad for an Analogous Colour Palette

Orange is one of my favourite colours, not just in watercolour, but clothing and interior design. It’s such a happy colour. I took out my Transparent Pyrrol Orange from my palette at the end of last year, which may seem like an odd decision for my favourite colour, but I realised I didn’t want to have the convenience of just one orange in my palette – it just seemed limiting when I have so many yellows and reds in my palette, and could create such a broad variety of oranges. I came to the conclusion that I could create a greater level of colour harmony by leveraging the primary colours I was already using in my sketch, to mix my oranges.

So I could quite happily choose an analogous colour palette from the orange side of the colour wheel.

But because the colour harmony is so tightly unified, these colours scream out for a cool complimentary colour to break up the potential monotony. That’s where the Manganese Blue Hue can play a key role in adding interest and diversity in a sketch.

Experimenting with this Colour Triad for Urban Sketching

If I wanted to use the full potential of this colour wheel, there’s an interesting balance of saturated and desaturated colours. As an experiment, I swatched mixing the primary colours with Potter’s Pink to make them granulating, and then swatched the primaries with Buff Titanium to create pastel versions.

The primary blue is ideal for the sky, but I need to play around more with creating greens with the Quin gold, and see what variety I can get. But at first glance, I think this triad will be really versatile for street scenes, and plan on experimenting with it before I go to Toulouse.