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Do you look at other people’s watercolour sketches and wonder how their colours look so intense? So bright and clear? In short, how they POP?
It’s not hard to make colours shout out from the page with intense vibrancy. You just need to learn a few very simple tips.
People ask me a LOT how I make my colours so intense. They even ask what medium I’m using. I suspect they don’t associate strong colours with watercolour – but actually, if you use good-quality artists’ paints, you can get deep, vibrant and very intense colours with watercolour.
There are a lot of watercolour sketches that are drawn with competence, but are somewhat let down by weak, wishy-washy colours. It’s a pity, because it’s an issue that is SO easy to fix. So easy, in fact, that you’ll be able to really master the skill of making something look “real” out there on the street, with no need to touch up back home. In fact, it’s a very common misconception that you can take a photo and finish off painting away from your location. You can, but it won’t have that magic sense of “being there” that only comes from painting your subject directly.
I’m going to tell you how I make my subjects “pop” in three steps – it’s as easy as 1,2,3. Of course, I can only tell you how I paint, and strong colour is my style. You might prefer a more subtle look – pared-back isn’t really my style.
There’s a sort of personal story behind the mugs I painted in this tutorial. My parents had a beautiful apartment in the Russian Quarter of Nice, in the south of France, and my family and I holidayed there quite often over the years. We loved exploring the beautiful city and its beaches on sunny mornings and sweltering, lazy afternoons.
From the first time I went to Vieux Nice – the old part of the city – I was enchanted. I loved the narrow, twisted streets, the stalls selling pizza and ice cream, the shops with embroidered linens and lavender soaps outside, even the crowds. I came across L’atélier des Cigales on my first visit to Nice in 2008. It’s on the Rue de Collet in Vieux Nice, close to the Promenade des Anglais and the stony beach of the Baie des Anges. The owner is an attractive woman in her forties or fifties, voluptuous, with blonde hair piled up in an artfully-dishevelled way and huge, pretty brown eyes. Her name, I later discovered, was Agnès, and her shop is a cornucopia of beautiful pottery from the region, featuring cicadas, octopuses, flowers and olives.
On my second visit in 2010 I immediately fell for a blue mug with a cicada pattern on it. I bought it on impulse for my husband Marcel, even though I knew he prefers mugs that have parallel sides. He loved it, and used it every day for his wake-up tea in bed (he’s thoroughly spoiled), until one gloomy morning when he knocked it off his bedside table and it smashed. He fixed it, but not invisibly, and I decided to buy a replacement when I got the chance.
So I bought my next mug in 2014. It was dark brown, but no one really took to it. In 2016 I bought a lovely light green one, with myself in mind. “Thank you, honey,” said Marcel when I showed it to him. “I love it.” “Actually, it’s for me,” I said, as we both looked at the pile of nice things I’d bought myself, and the empty space where his pile should have been. I had no choice but to hand it over.
I determined to buy two mugs for myself the next time I was in Nice. I would have a yellow one and a red one. I rang Agnès to order them, but in true French style she was non-committal. “I never know what is going to arrive in a consignment, Madame,” she told me. “You just have to call in from time to time.” I explained that I lived abroad and didn’t get to Nice very often. In the end I rang so often that she would say, “Yes, I remember you,” but never had the colours I wanted. Then one day she told me she had a yellow mug and a red mug put aside for me.
In the summer of 2017, I made the most of what would be my last visit to Agnès’ shop. My parents sold their apartment in Nice, and I suspected my visits to the south of France were coming to a close. Agnès fetched the nugs she’d put aside for me, and I bought another blue one while I was there.
I’d always meant to paint my beautiful collection of Provençal mugs, and last week I did.
So…if a painting doesn’t pop, why not? Here are three things to think of if you want vibrant results:
Step 1: LOOK at the subject closely, carefully and honestly.
Step 2: SQUINT so you can see lights and darks clearly.
Step 3: APPLY enough layers of paint.
In the following section. I will elaborate on what each of those subjects actually means, and by way of illustration I painted the mugs in stages. Where something is really important and applies across every painting you make, I will call it a Top Tip.
I chose a subject that has lots of colours, as different pigments behave differently, somewhat annoyingly! I will give you a run down of the colours used for each mug.
Step 1: LOOK at the subject closely, carefully and honestly.
See how the colour appears to change across the subject. Some parts are deep in colour. Some are light. Do you have the right selection of colours on your palette to faithfully represent the colours you see?
Step 2: SQUINT so you can see lights and darks clearly.
Do you see the highlights, where the cups are shiny?
Fence off these areas. They are going to remain unpainted. You can do this with a very narrow nib, a pencil or you can paint a circle with the colour of your subject, but this means working quickly, as you don’t want brushstrokes to develop. Once the paint dries, you risk hard edges developing.
Top Tip: DO NOT let your brush touch these areas at any point during the painting. Even a slick of clean water will take away their glow, and spoil the effect of light hitting the subject.
Paint the first layer of colour. It will be the very lightest shade you can see.
Step 3: APPLY enough layers of paint.
When the first layer is dry, try to identify the second-lightest areas of colour. Apply a second layer of paint to these areas. You don’t need to change the colour – watercolour darkens naturally the more layers you apply. Remember to avoid the areas of highlight! Deepen up the area in shadow, like the interior of the mug, and the sides of the inside rim.
Top Tip: Always let a layer of paint dry before adding the next.
Build up the layers (remember step 3). It’s a very good idea to paint the background first. This is because you can paint larger areas of colour quickly and with confidence, without trying to avoid small areas that you have already painted. If you accidentally go over these, you risk picking up the colours in them. So resist the temptation to paint the fun bits first!
Once you’re happy that you have more or less painted the background, you can start to pick out bits in the foreground. I always start with the least-dramatic bits, just because I love the drama of adding the fun bits at the end.
Now you can start painting the fun bits!
When I have painted all the bits of foreground, being careful to make sure there are no white bits around them, I do two things. I try to deepen the background slightly right next to the foreground elements. This makes them stand out better. Next, I squint again, and check whether my shadows need deepening, especially the one inside the mug.
Finally, I put in whatever shadows are being cast by the subjects. I use Indigo by Schmincke, as it’s versatile, rich – and definitely NOT black!
Here is the finished painting…
Yellow mug: Hansa yellow, lemon yellow, chrome orange
Green mug: Phthalo green, hansa yellow, lemon yellow, yellow ochre
Blue mug: Ultramarine, indigo
Red mug: Scarlet, pyrrol orange, alizarin crimson
Brown mug: Burnt umber
Cicadas: Chrome orange, pyrrol orange, opera pink, magenta
Stripes: Cerulean, scarlet, pyrrol orange
Leaves: Phthalo green, hansa yellow
Olives: Cerulean, black ink
Bands under mugs: Burnt umber, Venetian red
A word on mixing colours, and how they behave:
Yellows will always be less intense than, say, red. I use a few layers, and I mix a bit of Chrome orange to enrich it. My favourite yellow is Hansa yellow.
Scarlet is mixed with Alizarin crimson and a bit of burnt orange (eg. Pyrrhol orange) just to add interest to the red, which can be a bit much on its own.
Don’t be shy to add Yellow ochre or Venetian red to Phthalo green to make the greens less acidic.
I find Ultramarine very thin and wishy washy – a necessary evil, perhaps – so I mix it with Indigo to deepen it, and I always apply a few layers of Ultramarine to enrich it.
As my patrons, you deserve support in return. If there is something you’re not clear on, ask in the comments section and I will do my best to clarify.
Good luck!
