Gray or is it green?

(C) 2018 Dale DiMauro

In watercolor painting I find coming up with grays a real challenge. Of course, you have warm and cool grays to utilize. Other painters say green, for them, is problematic. I do find many greens on the low value range synonymous with some grays.

Often I let pigments on my palette run into each other. This way I have pigment mixtures that I would not normally come up with. As a result there is often pools of gray accumulated in my mixing wells that I can draw upon.

I have learned that grays and other neutral colors enable other colors, such as red to sing. Grays if applied skillfully can emit a soft atmospheric quality in your painting. The greenish-gray seen here is a combination of some variety of cobalt blue and burnt sienna.

This is most likely a dull post but I believe it reflects the dreary weather we are having lately. The shorter days with decreased light levels due to this cloudy, rainy patch highlights a limited color scheme. Particularly, if you are an astute observer of nature. At this time of year I look out the window and try to come up a color that matches what I am seeing.