The power of colour 3: Yellow

January 19, 2021

**Yellows only Watercolour**
Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow deep and Indian Yellow

Yellow, the sunshine colour; just what we could do with today! Opposite purple on the simple colour wheel this is the colour intrinsically pale in tone, even the yellows that are nearer to orange are pale in their most saturated form.

Yellow paints in your box may range from the very pale lemony yellows nearest to green;

Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Light

To the middle yellows;

Cadmium Yellow Medium, Chromium Yellow Light

And yellows that are almost orange;

Turner’s Yellow, Chromium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Indian Yellow

You can do any of the suggested projects below with one pale or lemony yellow and one that is nearer to orange or at least in the middle range of yellows.

Have a look at the Pinterest board to see how other artists have worked with yellow as the principal colour in a composition.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/jhall1282/the-power-of-colour/yellow/

Then try any two of the following (more if it’s pouring with rain outside).

1. Try making an abstract or representational painting, using any pure yellows. If you need to because you are using an opaque medium like pastel or gouache you may use white.

Do not use earth yellows such as the ochres. These are already de-saturated colours. By mixing yellow with black, or as we shall see next week with purple, you should be able to mix your own approximations to these.

2. Find how the yellows in your box mix with black and make a hard edged composition with at least some pure black areas, some pure white/white of the paper areas, and blocks of pure yellow and yellow mixed with black or white. This may be representational or abstract.

**Hard Edged Shapes in Watercolour**
Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Indian Yellow, Black
Note how the deep orange mixes, two middle columns make warm brown mixes with black but the pale lemony yellows make greenish mixes.

**Hard Edged Shapes in Watercolour as above with Black** **background**
Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Indian Yellow, Black
Note how the deep orange mixes, two middle columns make warm brown mixes with black but the pale lemony yellows make greenish mixes.

**Watercolour with Soft and hard edges**
Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Yellow deep and Indian Yellow and Black
Yellows were dropped on to the paper wet in wet. A swirl of black was run through the still wet wash with a rigger brush. The handle end of the brush was use to make curved lines into the wash while it was still damp and paint settled into the indented grooves and allowed to dry. Guided by some of these lines, opaque white, yellow and mixes of black and yellow were applied in a rather decorative manner. If you enjoy doodling and working intuitively, this is the exercise for you!

3.Make a painting with hard and soft edges with any mixes of yellow, black and white, abstract or representational. For textures as in the Sargent portrait you may consider using pastel instead of a wet medium.

**Yellow Watercolour with Analogous Colours** (unfinished)
The same pigments were used for the yellows, plus black and a hint of vermilion was added to some of the yellow for the orange vase and a hint of cerulean was added to lemon yello for the yellow green colour.

4. Make a painting using the same colours as in 3 but you may add touches of closely related colours like a reddish orange or a yellowy green.

With your paintings try to find ways of sorting out major tonal areas. The dark and unsaturated colours will be the perfect foil to pure or almost pure colours. Be very aware of when you are using pure colour and when you are using de-saturated colour. Look at how pure colours seem to stand out from duller unsaturated colours demanding attention.

Your paintings;