Snape Art and Watercolour Worries

First off, this is for _grainne_, to thank her for the rose she gave me on Valentine's Day :-).



*smooches _grainne_*

As you can see, I still haven't given up on watercolour painting yet, though I don't seem to be able to paint anything decent except small and simple pictures like the one above. Mind you, I love small and simple pictures, but - I'd like to be able to do something more complex too! That said, I think I should really start working on my sumi-e, because that style of painting probably suits me better than more Western approaches, and I might be able to achieve some success there if I study enough...

In any case, I am struggling on with my watercolours. Because I have trouble mixing colours, I got myself a new (well, second-hand) book that seemed really interesting in the sense that it proposes a completely different approach to colour than the ones I had read so far. The book is called Making Color Sing and was written by Jeanne Dobie. She has all sorts of things to say that are much too advanced for me, but the basics I can understand :-). First off, Dobie uses a basic palette that centres around four colours that are normally deemed completely optional: Rose Madder Genuine, Aureolin Yellow, Cobalt Blue and Viridian. She favours them because they are pure pigments and very transparent. The colours you get when you mix them are still luminous, even the greys. Only - well, these colours aren't very lightfast, so some artists say that Dobie is insane recommending them :P. Well, I don't much care. My paintings aren't on display, so my Rose Madder Genuine isn't going to fade any time soon. I'll remember the lightfastness issue if anyone should ever commission a painting from me - but seeing how amateurish I still am, I think I still have quite a lot of time to worry about replacement colours ;-).

Anyway: the picture above, as the one below the cut, have both been painted with Dobie's basic colours.



( If You Are Prepared )

Concrit & good advice are very welcome!