Homemade paint

Since I wrote the post about Seraphine, I have made two attempts to make my own paints.

The photo above shows red onion skins bubbling in a pan. The water became a deep ruby colour & I was so excited to try using it.

My experiment, even after two dips in the mixture, did not live up to the deep red it promised & gave a very disappointing result. It had the appearance of a manilla envelope!

For my second brew, I boiled up skin from the less exotic brown onion. This turned the water a golden amber colour & held a depth of colour that the first concotion had lacked. I used this first homemade paint for the eyes of the cat below.

The drawing is the first sketch for a character from a novel that I am basing some work on. I used a British Blue for the model & was quite pleased with the resulting eye colour.

Experimenting

I recently acquired a box of Brusho, it comes in tiny pots & is a very strong powdered pigment.

These are my first experiments.

I love the way it can be diluted to create an ink-like intensity or can be lightly scattered on wet paper (bottom left) to create a lighter effect. It is quite different to working with watercolour & once dry, cannot be reactivated.

Winter Cattle

Today, whilst out walking, I came upon these beautiful monochrome beasts basking themselves in the January sunshine.

I was struck by both the size and angular shapes of these animals, which are Galloway Belted cattle.

In the sketch below I used a marker pen to depict the smaller cow and pencil & fine liner for the larger one & the tree. The  strength of the marker brings the smaller animal closer, whilst the other is pushed into the background by the lighter tone of the pencil.

Why no white?

I recently read the following review of a set of watercolours on Amazon UK:

'I purchased this for my daughter who is taking GCSE art. There is a nice range of colours (but no white) and the white plastic box they come in is sturdy.'

 My inner watercolour geek could not resist adding a comment..........

Traditional watercolour techniques do not use white and this is why many sets do not include it. Watercolours are by nature transparent; this is their unique quality & adds to their beauty. It is this transparency that gives  the colours their vibrancy. It also enables them to be layered, creating many exciting effects. If white is added to the paint, it becomes dull, opaque & flat & is then, little different to gouache. 

The key to creating lighter tones is not to add white, but to add water to dilute the paint & allow more of the white of the paper to show through. There are, of course, many sets, such as the one above, which do include white, but I would strongly recommend that you work on developing the techniques (& self-restraint!)  to create lighter tones without it's use. Your work will have a clarity & vibrancy that is impossible to achieve by other methods.

PS. If you look closely at the photo above, you will see that my brush has never touched the white paint in this box!