Colour 4

Observed colour - matching colours accurately; mixing paint. It turned out to be a good exercise - do try this at home!

First we cut and tore up magazines to make a collage, using areas of flat colour if possible. This was done quickly. My first attempt was colourful (mm, lime green!) but chaotic and senseless, so I took a few minutes to put together something I was happier with. We used L-shaped bits of paper to find an area that we'd spend the rest of the day painting. Then we got out drawing boards and all the other stuff. Again - quickly. Lots of stuff in the room - not just easels but half a table each, for the palette.

The tubes of oil paint are so nicely laid out, grouped by colour family. By the end of the day they were, of course, all jumbled up anyhow. And with little space for getting to the sinks, cleanup was frustrating as well as chaotic. But that came later.

First a lesson on laying out the palette. Colours round the edge, light/warm at one end, dark/cool at the other - and white at the top. Black, if you use it, goes at the end of the darks.

We were each told what colours would make each of the colours in our collage. I didn't need very many - prussian blue, cobalt blue, emerald green, the two reds, burnt sienna, raw umber, white, black.

The selected area of the collage was scaled up by using a diagonal line - this makes for the same ratio of height to width at any point, allowing scaling up to any size. The finished painting includes the shadow from the border strips (strange how you have to have it pointed out; makes you look harder next time, I guess). Painting the white lines was fun once you knew how - see one, do one - it's good to be shown some tricks of the trade. The masking tape, which made for crisp edges, has been removed. A display of the day's work.

And wondering what Colour 5 - expressive colour - will bring.