Watercolour Triad for my Beach Scene

I’m geeking out a little bit (…ok! well a lot!) about using colour triads on complex sketches to help give them some colour harmony. At the moment my current fascination is the colour triad of these three Daniel Smith watercolours:

• Hansa Yellow Light
• Quin Rose
• Phthalo Blue (red shade)

I’ve created two colour wheels to show the range of saturation I would ordinarily use. The lighter version is great for using as an initial wash, and the more saturated version helps to create the focal point of a sketch. I like doing colour wheels this way, because it really helps to show the potential of a colour triad.

Simplifying a Beach Scene

I usually go straight in with line work, and then colour the sketch, but for this beach scene I worked differently.

Focal Point

I identified the focal point as the sun umbrellas, and painted the shapes in with different variations from my colour triad.

Composition

This really helped to set the composition, and meant that I didn’t get overwhelmed with off the details of what was under the umbrellas and the people.

Then I used my Pilot Parallel pen with Sketch Ink (Lotte) to sketch the people, chairs, and beach paraphernalia.

This pen create ultra-thin lines, which doesn’t detract attention from the focal point of the sun umbrellas.

Beach Scene with Ink-only People

Initially I was going to leave the people as ink-lines. But because I decided not to put in the sand or sea, I felt that they weren’t differentiated enough.

Beach Scene with Ink and Wash People

For the first time since painting people, I went ahead and coloured everyone the same with:

• Hansa Yellow Light hair
• A mix of the colour triad colours to make a skin tone
• Phthalocyanine Blue and Quin Rose mix for the swimwear

I thought it might look a little cult-like to have everyone looking the same. But something I read in Oliver Hoeller’s book “Pack Your Sketches Full of Life” resonated with me.

I really like how the people don’t compete with the sun umbrellas, and how just painting in the umbrella shapes helps create the foundation of my composition. I think this is a really good technique to have in my sketching toolkit next time I’m overwhelmed by the level of detail in a scene.