Hazel Soan’s Art of the Limited Palette

Most watercolour books will have a section on working with a limited palette and there have been previous volumes on the subject. Those, however, have tended to base themselves on the author’s specific and unvaried selection. Yes, you could probably buy a set of them – how convenient.

I have never seen a Hazel Soan branded product and I doubt I ever will. This is not a book about what you should do half so much as what you can do. The difference is both subtle and vast and anyone who’s familiar with Hazel’s work will understand immediately. She’s an artist and writer who leads by example, inspires and gently guides and this is what has won her so many fans.

The paintings here are mostly done with between three and five colours, but they’re not prescriptive and Hazel varies them depending on the subject, so you might get the unsurprising Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre and Permanent Rose where a blue shirt is the key hue in a simple composition. Then, a few pages later, you’re working on a summer landscape with Aureolin, Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson. The point being eloquently made is that it’s the subject that guides you, not the paintbox. These are pictures, not technical exercises.

Even more interesting are the sections where we’re down to just two colours. These are not clever tricks, but rather a way of achieving a particular result in a particular part of the work. You’ll be aware, for example, of how good Hazel is with shadows and reflections. So you’ll find yourself making a pre-mix of two greys, one red- and the other blue-shifted. Yes, there are five colours involved here, but they come down to two and depict those shadows and reflections in a rain-soaked street scene perfectly.

As much as anything else, this is a book about thinking about colour. The limited palette forces you to avoid the tendency to reach for yet another shade from the dozens you have in your box (yes you do). Hazel begins with some studies that look at how different combinations enhance and set each other off – blues and yellows (obviously), but also yellows and reds, reds and blues. She also explains, with well-chosen examples that make the message abundantly clear, how to make secondary colours quickly and easily. There’s a look at the earth colours as well as the use of both related and opposing shades.

There’s so much here that this becomes one of the most comprehensive studies of and guides to colour there is.

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Colour Demystified || Julie Collins

Julie has previously been the author of fairly conventional colour mixing guides, but this is something else altogether.

There’s a hint of what’s to come in the list of acknowledgements, which includes several artists and art writers, the Tate Gallery and many art brands which will be familiar to the reader. Julie has not just done her research, but done it in depth.

It’s no exaggeration to say that, if this were alchemy, it would be the philosopher’s stone, the catalyst that turns the base metal of simple pigments into the gold of a successful painting. It’s not magic or witchcraft and has nothing to do with the creative side of painting (you’re on your own there). What it is, though, is a completely reliable guide to how your materials behave on paper (we’re working with watercolours here).

Watercolour has many properties and they’re all based in chemistry. Guides to this have appeared before, most notably Ralph Meyer’s Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques, an exhaustive and exhausting tome that has its roots firmly in research chemistry. For the faint-hearted it is not.

This is shorter, illustrated and altogether more manageable. Or, let’s just say, manageable. Colours can be transparent or opaque. Some are staining, some will granulate. Some are perfect for glazing, others decidedly not. You need to know all these things, you need to know which pigments play nicely together and which should never be invited to each other’s birthday parties. It’s all in the chemistry, but you’re not a chemist, you’re an artist. You want the magic (OK, it is magic really) to happen on the palette, not in the library.

This is what Julie gives you – a practical artist’s guide to how colours work for the artist. It’s full of colour swatches, examples and demonstrations and you can see what’s happening at every stage, even try it out for yourself. It’s a book you’ll want to keep handy for reference, although there’s also a very good chance that you find you’ve remembered most of it. It’s convincing, comprehensive and joyously concise. Above all, it’s a key that opens just about every door.

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Watercolour Mixing Techniques For Botanical Artists || Jackie Isard

Books on flower painting abound, as do colour mixing guides, but this is the first time I have seen something as specific as this. It is, it should be said, very thorough, but without being exhausting and the detail (which is considerable) is entirely practical. Jackie is clearly fully on top of her subject.

A lot of mixing guides consist of little more than colour swatches and these, while useful, can leave you gasping for air. Here, there are remarkably few and they’re surprisingly small. You can, though, see what you need to and the whole point is that they do not dominate. The purpose of the book isn’t to present you with an exhaustive – or exhausting – list of what you can produce, but rather a selected set of examples of what you will need. What you will see are images of flowers, leaves, stems and berries, each clearly annotated with information about the colours used. Enlarged details are included where they are needed.

Despite its relatively limited extent, this is a comprehensive guide that includes not just mixing information, but the use of colour for tone, shading and to highlight detail. Everything is in just the right place and the book wears its considerable level of technical information very lightly indeed.

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3000 Colour Mixing Recipes: Watercolour || Julie Collins

Along with the welcome resurgence of David & Charles comes the equally welcome reissue of this very thorough encyclopaedia of mixes, tints and hues.

It was originally part of a larger volume, Colour Mixing Index, which covered all the main media and you can read the review of that here.

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Take Three Colours: Watercolour Seascapes || Geoff Kersey

This is the second outing for a promising new series that breaks popular subjects down into manageable form. The idea of using just three colours (red, blue and yellow) is that there’s a minimum of fussing about with mixing. What’s impressive, though, is the range of tints and hues that Geoff manages to achieve and there’s no hint of the extremely limited palette.

These books are, as you might have guessed, aimed at the beginner and the instruction and hand-holding are comprehensive; you’re never left feeling that something has been missed out, that there was another stage in there somewhere. Handy jargon busters deal with any technical terms that may be unfamiliar.

The pictures you’ll work on are not complex images, but that’s not what you’d want. The tone and detail are nicely judged.

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Take Three Colours: Watercolour Flowers || Julie King

Flower painting being the tricky subject that it is, anything that simplifies the painting process has to be a good thing, just as long as it doesn’t over-simplify and trivialise. It’s therefore something of a relief to be able to say that Julie manages her task with considerable success.

You will, I’m sure, be amazed by the variety of tints and hues she manages to achieve with just three base colours (the same ones throughout). Yes, if you look closely, the results lack some of the subtlety that could be achieved with more, but you wouldn’t feel dissatisfied with the results, for all that. I also have a feeling that the reproduction may not be as sharp as it could be, and that what you see on paper might be better that it is on the pages of the book. I also wouldn’t have chosen that sunflower as the cover illustration as it really doesn’t convey the variety of what you can achieve. Please don’t let it put you off.

In keeping with the series style, there are plenty of generously-sized stage illustrations, short captions telling you what’s going on and sidebars that include a variety of tips and jargon busters.

With 9 projects and clear instruction, this is the ideal place to start on a rewarding subject. You might also find it useful if you’ve already had a go, but are struggling.

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Take Three Colours: Watercolour Landscapes || Geoff Kersey

This is a brilliantly simple idea brilliantly presented. Working with a limited palette isn’t new, of course, but working with an absolute minimum of colours removes a major element of complication that can be a stumbling block for beginners: colour mixing. What’s impressive is just how much you can do with ultramarine, cadmium yellow pale and light red. A few mixes, some washes and even a bit of drybrush gives you an impressive array of options that can produce subtle and varied results. The rule of three even extends to the brushes – less, as ever, is more.

The book itself is nicely structured and the early demonstrations are only four pages long. Sure, a cloudy sky and an evening lake are basically a foreground, a background and some middle distance, but it’s amazing what you can achieve with this. Results are the important thing and what encourage any beginner to keep going and progress. By the end, you’re ready for the simple, but complete, landscape that’s on the front cover.

If you’re new to watercolour – a complete beginner just getting started, or have maybe had a go and got lost along the way, this simple and clearly laid-out book will get you on track.

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Colour Mixing Guide: Oils || Julie Collins

On the heels of the watercolour and acrylics volumes comes this on oils. Previous comments apply.

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Colour Mixing Guide: Acrylics || Julie Collins

This is in the same series as the first volume on watercolour.
Everything I said about that applies here.

While I was checking the link for that, I was reminded of the same author’s 2007 Colour Mixing Index, which is also worth a look.

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Colour Mixing Guide Watercolour || Julie Collins

Ah, another colour mixing guide. I needed one of those. But wait, it’s a bit thin, isn’t it? Small(ish) format and only 48 pages? I’ve got tomes I take great care not to drop on my foot.

Keep reading, because this is a good ’un. Have a look at those larger books you’ve got (yes you have…). Do you really need all those pages and pages of almost identical mixes? Yes, one of those subtle shades might come in useful one day but, by the time you’ve worked your way through and found it, the creative muse will have toddled off up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire and that carefully laid wash will have dried out like a camel without an oasis.

I was captivated on page 5, a simple still life done with just three colours. Yes, it’s not the subtlest piece of painting I’ve ever seen, but it works and it makes a point, which the caption, referring to each numbered area, explains elegantly. From just those three colours, there are 16 different hues (counting the white of the paper). Impressed? Of course you are.

The meat of the book begins with a brief explanation of primary, secondary and tertiary, complementary, and warm and cool colours. Each of these gets just one page, so there’s no room for complication. There’s further advice on using a limited palette and on the appropriate places for dull and bright colours. The actual mixes don’t start until page 28, so occupy less than half the book. Julie wisely confines them to pure, then 20, 40, 60 and 80% of the other half of the mix. Each of these takes up just one line in a double-page spread, keeping it all very simple.

Simplicity is the heart of colour mixing. The more you do, the more of a mess you’re going to get into. Less is always more and the moment you start adding more than two colours, the closer you are to a muddy grey. If you struggle with colour mixing, the sheer brevity of this will delight you. If you regard yourself as something of an expert, it can still remind you of the basics, back to which we should all get from time to time.

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