Part 2 Improve your colour-mixing skills with Colin Steed’s three primary-colour challenge

Watercolour

Demonstration Norfolk Cottage

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

■ Get to know your primary colours.

■ Colour mixing made easy

■ Paint three different versions of the same scene

In part one last month I explained why and how I make colour wheels. Making colour wheels is a useful exercise when learning to mix colour. You become familiar with the colours in your palette, how to mix the tone of a colour and, when completed, can clearly see the colours that can be mixed and how cool and warm colours look.

I hope you have come to realise that you can paint most scenes using just three primary colours. My challenge was to paint three versions of this Norfolk cottage (right) using three different blues, reds and yellows.

Making and using colour wheels will improve your colour-mixing skills and help you to choose a limited palette to achieve a fresh and colourful painting. You can try lots of different primary colour combinations when making colour wheels and use them to paint almost any subject.