Today I was back at Kew Gardens and revisited Rory McEwen The Colours Of Reality (11 May to 22 September 2013) at the The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art. (See my earlier post A day in the life of botanical artist Rory McEwen)
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| Tulip 'Helen Josephine' 1975 Images courtesy of the Estate of Rory McEwen |
However the colours in his paintings are, of course, also partly due to the paint he used.
One of the cases in the exhibition is given over to his painting materials.
Knowing how much artists like to know about palettes I used my magnifying glasses to copy out the names of the paints he used. So what follows is a list of paint colours!
It's difficult to know which brands of paint he used however evidence from the names and from the tubes in the display case suggest he used a combination of Winsor & Newton (much used by botanical artists) and Old Holland Classic Watercolours.
He created his palettes by placing tube paint on paper or a thin board and then using the tube paint as a resource for the paint colours he mixed. Bear in mind the size of the brushes he used he was working dry brush with little very small brushes (W&N Series 7 sable - a lot of 00 and smaller)
It was very evident that some of the paints were fugitive as there's now no colour left. However it's unclear whether these were used a lot or not. Several people have expressed reservations about about the pigments and lightfastness of certain Old Holland colours (eg see Handprint's review of Old Holland). I think it more likely that when using Old Holland, McEwen may have trying to use paints which would have been available to painters like Georg Ehret. There again these were tubes which had not been used much so maybe he didn't use Old Holland much at all!
My personal view - based on the names on his palettes - is that he was actually using Winsor & Newton. You can check this out for your self by comparing the names below with the two colour charts for the different paints:
- Winsor & Newton Artists' Professional Water Colour - Colour Chart
- Old Holland Classic Watercolours - Colour Chart
Note with respect to comments about where paint looks fugitive that these paints would have been those in use over 30 years ago - at least. Paint formulations have moved on since then! It is also very apparent that he was paying attention to lightfastness as a swatch card accompanied each colour - and this highlighted the lightfastness - at that time
Yellow
- Lemon Yellow
- Winsor Yellow
- Cadmium Lemon
- Aureolin
- Cadmium Yellow Pale
- Aurora Yellow
- New Gamboge
- Cadmium Yellow
- Indian Yellow
- Cadmium Yellow Deep
Orange
- Cadmium Orange
- Chrome Orange
Red
- Bright Red
- Cadmium Scarlet (completely fugitive)
- Scarlet Vermillion (paint missing from the palette - discontinued?)
- Scarlet Lake (looks fugitive)
- Cadmium Red (paint missing from the palette)
- Cadmium Red Deep
- Vermillion (paint missing from the palette - discontinued?)
- Winsor Red
Pinks and Purples
- Permanent Rose (Quinacridone)
- Alizarin Crimson
- Alizarin Carmine
- Rose Madder (crossed through) Alizarin
- Cobalt Violet (looks fugitive)
- Winsor Violet
- Permanent Magenta (Quinacridone) (paint missing from the palette)
Blue
- Manganese Mineral Blue
- Cobalt Blue
- Cerulean Blue
- Permanent Blue
- French Ultramarine (used a lot!)
- Antwerp Blue (paint missing from the palette)
- Winsor Blue
- Prussian Blue (looks fugitive)
- Cyanine Blue
- Winsor Emerald
- Terre Verte
- Sap Green (completely used up)
- Viridian
The Old Holland colours on display are as follows
- Cadmium Red Light
- Terre Verte
- Cadmium Citron
- Groene aarde (green earth)
- ? greep licht
- ? oker licht
- French Ultramarine
- Cobalt Violet
There was another card for the more boring browns, greys etc but this was not visible
For more about watercolour paints see my post about the best brand of watercolour paint for artists'.
So - what do you think about his choice of colours?
So - what do you think about his choice of colours?
- Are there any that surprise you?
- Do you agree it appears to be more W&N than Old Holland?
[NOTE: Links have been revised updated for changes since publication]
Awesome to see this list, Katherine! Thank you for taking the trouble to compile it for your readers. I find this info fascinating.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post . Okre is ocher and licht means light.
ReplyDeleteThanks Enzie
ReplyDeleteI guess the quantity of Cadmiums is interesting to see, as they are usually very opaque and his images just don't seem to be full of opaqueness - they literally glow!
ReplyDeleteSo I wonder if Cadmiums behave differently on vellum? I have no idea as I haven't used vellum myself, but maybe some of your readers who have used the material could shed some light on the transparency of watercolours on vellum and if it changes at all. That would be really good knowledge to have.
It also looks like he mixed his greens which is pretty informative, and maybe that is why there are so many different yellows? I tend to stick to just a few, but he had loads! Although I have just spotted that he used a lot of sap green looking at your list, so maybe that was his 'base' and then he extended it with blues and yellows. Fascinating.
I reckon you can tell an awful lot about how somebody painted by just looking at their palette and which paints get used the most.
ReplyDeleteI had the privilege to visit the exihibition with Christabel King (she was my tutor at Kew at the time I had a Margaret Mee scholarship). We discussed a lot about McEwen techniques and the colours he used. What I also found very impressive was the size of the vellums he used. don´t you think tha the colour you mentioned "greep licht" could be "groen licht" = green light? Thanks for sharing!!!
ReplyDelete