Neon Tramway and Grey Day

With several consecutive rainy days lined up, the grass and trees should be greener than ever, luckily I invested in more yellow and green paint recently. Traditional green paints were rather dull, it was not until the 19^th century that viridian was invented, it is a chromium oxide emerald green that is still used to this day in fact, I had it in my palette at the beginning. Prior to viridian, artists relied on a range of minerals or green earths now known as PG23, for example green porphyry which you see in the above painting as the dull green in the background and foreground elements. To provide contrast, I added very high chroma orange (PO62), yellow (PY175) and rose-red (PV19) to create the neon tramway, and bone black (PBk9) for the inky night sky. I call this a study because I plan to make a larger version now that I have more paper to play with!

Neon Tramway Study 4 x 6" cold press, watercolour, April 2021 (No. 2628b)

The term chroma refers to how much colour is in a colour, in other words, how saturated it is. If you have ever dripped food colouring into water (or beer) then you know one drop gives a pale colour, three or more drops starts to get intensely coloured and even darkened. Same with paint pigments. Technically, chroma can be understood as how much grey there is in the colour. Recently I picked up some graphite grey (Schmincke PBk10) which is the definition of zero chroma (zero saturation). By comparison, you see in the painting above the similarity between the grey, the blue (lapis lazui), the green (green porphyry), and the yellow (lemon ochre). The three colours are all low chroma pigments. It is not a bad thing, because most of nature is roughly half-chroma. As I understand this better, it helps to create realistic looking landscapes, and to accentuate the imagery. For example, in the first painting, the reason the colours look neon is because they are set against a low chroma background. Your eye automatically compares things, so a dull background will amplify a colourful subject matter.

Grey Day 7 x 13.5" watercolour paper, watercolour, April 2021