Ask any botanical artist which colour causes the most problems, and you’ll be surprised to hear them say Green.
Yes, that all essential, life-giving and luscious colour is
notoriously difficult to get right. Unlike many colours which can be used
straight from the pan, green has to be mixed. Commercial greens just don’t
work … they are inevitably too blue, or too yellow, too vibrant (yes, I’m
talking about you Viridian), too bright, too dark … all exasperatingly wrong! Even Sap green, a favourite of mine, has to be toned down to make it behave.
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| sketchbook experiments in green |
This week began with the quest to find the right greens for
my Calamondin orange leaves. The leaves are a dark blue-green on top, and a
yellow-green underneath. I had used indigo for my earlier studies, but Indigo
is like the Mariah Carey of pigments- it's such a diva! It’s a fabulous colour but it stubbornly refuses to be lifted. It muddies up all the other colours. It’s unpredictable and at times overbearing.
There was nothing for it but to find a better blue… so I
made up a chart comparing Indanthrene,
Cobalt blue, Perylene green and Indigo. I mixed them with a selection of
transparent yellows. I tried possible mixes over cerulean (which will be my
first wash on the leaves)… but still the elusive green was not found.
By coincidence, Robert Genn’s weekly newsletter (worth
signing up for if you haven’t already) was all about yellows. I was very
interested to read that one of my favourite pigments, Indian Yellow, came about by
feeding cows a diet of mango leaves, and then harvesting and drying the bright
yellow urine. Remind me not to lick my paintbrush!! A similar colour, New Gamboge comes from the resin of the Garcinia
hanburyi tree, found in Cambodia. In fact the word Gamboge comes from the word
Gambogia, Latin for Cambodia. The pigment from this resin is used to dye the
saffron coloured robes of Buddhist monks.
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| Comparing Winsor Yellow (deep), Indian Yellow and New Gamboge. I'm still sighing over the gorgeous Indigo though... look at the lovely dark it makes when mixed with sap green (second column from the right) |
Inspired by this, I decided to compare the two
pigments with my blues, and was surprised to find that although they look very
similar on their own, the greens that they make are quite different. In fact
Indanthrene and New Gamboge seem to be the answer to my green issue! Mind you,
I haven’t yet put away the Indigo, so it might yet get a look in.
So onto the composition-
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| All traced out. I decided that I had too many leaves, so cut off a few. |
I selected three small branches of
my little orange tree. I laid the sprigs onto paper to get the feel of the composition, took a photograph , and then drew each one out carefully onto a separate
sheet of tracing paper. Then it’s just a matter of playing around until you get
the right arrangement. As I plan to paint this onto vellum of a similar size to
the Iris foetidissima, I felt that it
would be nice to get a composition that would complement that of the iris. They
are not a pair, but with luck, they will be both accepted into the SBA
exhibition.
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| Laying them all side by side, helps me to envision what the final result will be |
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| However I wasn't happy with the composition, and so redrew it to come up with a better one (right) |
Tracing paper is such a
great way of working out composition, particularly when you have more complex
illustrations. You can move pieces about with ease and, if necessary, even flip
images by simply turning the tracing paper over. If you use a photocopier, you
can also reduce or enlarge your traced images- very handy when planning the composition of scientific botanical illustrations.
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| All set up and ready for action. The little bit of silver paper bounces light back up onto my fruit to give it a bit of "oomph!" |
So, with my composition and the colours worked out, it’s
now just a case of getting my head down and painting! I’ll try not to suck on
the paintbrush though.
