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Author: cyrillejubert, Contributing Editor
| Invited by Nina Gagarin to give a watercolor workshop in Palm Beach Florida in January 2005, I set out to show how you could paint all the shades of whites using a mix, more or less diluted, of three basic pigments.
Going further, I wanted to teach that with a very limited palette you could paint all the shades of the spectrum, being sure at the end to have a beautiful painting, where colors will match without gaudiness. My palette: cobalt blue, yellow ochre, magenta and indigo. The first three pigments mixed together could give me all the light shades and the three last, deeper tints going to the darkest black. |
| THE REFERENCE PHOTO
I took a photo of this dog in Brussels, just before the sunset in October. The rays of the sun are nearly horizontal and very colourful, giving interesting reflections to the fur. Most people wouldn’t see the colours and would just see a dark-brown dog, with grey fur on the muzzle. Concentrate your eyes on the left ear of the dog. Do you see the blue reflection on the top of it ? One inch to the right do you see the violet-blue lock that become purple and ochre blond in the sun light ? Now look at the top of the dog’s head. Do you see the blue, violet or purple shades, where the fur reflects the dark blue sky, while the fur on the forehead reflects the ochre and orange colours of the sunset? |
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| LEARN TO SEE COLOURS
To help you to see the colourful reflected light, I used Photoshop. Using the contrast tool, I enhanced the image and exaggerated the colours |  | I drew blue, yellow and red lines pointing to the strongest shades in the dog's fur.
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 | The first glaze will give roughly the prevailing colors in the fur.
As the portrait, painted during the workshop was a demonstration, I overdid things a little, and exaggerated the colours a lot. But in the end this gave a more artful portrait. Notice that from the first brush stroke, each lock is painted in the direction of the fur. From the beginning to the end, whatever the size of the brush, you should always “comb” the hair and remember that each brush stroke will be seen by transparency. On the right side, this strong color close to black is a mix of indigo, ochre and magenta. |
| PAINTING THE EYES
Is there anything worse looking than this white mask around his eyes? Before going on with the fur, I had to create the eyes of the dog to give a soul to the portrait. If the eyes turn out well, the whole painting will be successful. As I paint in watercolor without adding white gouache, I have to search for the most intense light in the reference photo and always remember to preserve it in my painting. My first brush stroke in the eyes will be for this white sparkle in the middle. I shall use a very light glaze of cobalt blue. So light, that I can’t see the colour when it is done. Nevertheless, I think it is really necessary. Working on the iris, I paint a very light glaze of ochre and let it dry. The next glaze will add a mix of ochre and magenta on the edge of the iris. Then I start to paint the pupil with a mix of my three colors, close to a dark brown-red. I did not try to find the exact shade at my first glaze, not even the exact shape. Remember, colors are relative, their values change with their immediate surroundings. Consequently, I shall take my time finishing the inside of the eye. While painting the eye lids with a very light glaze of indigo, I create a watery, light reflection, even if it is not in the photo. I know that such a tiny detail will bring more life in the eye. Now that my first glaze of the pupil is dry, using a very dark mix of pigments based on indigo, I paint the edge of the sparkle in the eye and what is perhaps the heart of the pupil. |
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