We see the world in colour these days, even on the tv. Things aren’t just black and white: there’s a huge, subtle range of values to process. That is important – contrast allows us to see things, to identify shapes, separate objects, and make sense of what is there – and it is tricky. To help out your brain and to improve your artwork, you can enlist technology to simplify things into black and white.
Carolyn has been doing some grey scaling. Check out the sample squares below. The palest are (you guessed it) yellows. Aureolin is in the corner and Azo is the one that looks like a blank space.
So the theory is that a painting could be toned with the Azo at full strength to create atmosphere, but it wouldn’t dull the white of the paper. Here are some little sketches exploring the idea. Which has the lightest (to the eye) background? Can you guess what colours are really there? Check your answer in the second picture.
Aha! It works. While Azo did not change the brightness much from the white, the pink mixes in the top and bottom versions did tint it, quite a bit.
Three Generation Watercolourists 