Wednesday

Colours in Autumn

September Shore, lithograph 27 x 40 cm © Elizabeth Tyler
Now the leaves are turning colour adding a little warmth to the chilly autumn air. I made this lithograph to depict a combination of two of my favourite subjects, an autumn leaf and a pebble beach. The eight transparent colours I used created numerous nuances where they overlapped each other.
The colours were:
Ultramarine blue
Cobalt blue
Hookers Green
Yellow
Sepia
Crimson red
Vermillion red
Black

Tuesday

Red Cabbage

Red cabbage watercolour 57 x 77 cm © Elizabeth Tyler 



















I've had a request asking me to show which colours I used in my painting "Red Cabbage" featured in the downloadable video A closer look at watercolour painting techniques on "Mindbites".
Colours used in Red Cabbage
All the colours are artist quality from Winsor and Newton and apart from Paynes grey they are in tubes. The reason I use tubes is because my paintings are normally quite large so I mix suitable portions of diluted colour in pots. You can extend the life of expensive brushes a lot by dipping them into diluted colour instead of wearing the bristles down on half-dry tablets.
Paynes grey is the exception though because the intensity of this colour is stronger in tablet form.
The other colours used for this painting were:
Cadmium yellow,
Ultramarine violet,
Cerulean Blue,
Winsor blue (red shade)
Sap green,
Pthalo turquiose,
Quincridone Magenta
and Winsor green ( yellow shade)
Here's a link to W&N's colour chart (no I'm not a shareholder!)
colour chart
If you want to see all the techniques involved in the painting of Red Cabbage, the whole video is available full screen HD (streaming) or on DVD. (PAL or NTSC) as part of the 75 min video  Watercolour Realism produced on license by Pulsar Productions, Australia.

Friday

A windy day

"A windy day" lithograph 27 x 40 cm
© Elizabeth Tyler 2010
"After a windy day" lithograph 27 x 40 cm
© Elizabeth Tyler 2010
It's autumn again and the old apple tree we have in the garden is shedding apples and leaves in the wind. I love  the interesting structure of the tree trunk with it's layers of crusty bark. It's taken over 70 years for the tree to reach this stage of maturity and not unlike most humans it has great character with the ripe old age. From a distance the trunk looks a nondescript brownish grey but a closer study reveals all shades of green, blue, orange, umber and red.
For each of these lithographs I made eight drawings, one for each colour. You can see the whole printing process with some of my previous works here: From drawing to lithographic print
Best to watch  in HD ( 720p )