Tessa Spanton SWA Artist, tutor, writer



TESSA SPANTON SWA ARTIST, WRITER AND TUTOR

Welcome to my blog.
This is where I write about some of the things that inspire my work,
news of exhibitions and works in progress

Monday 26 May 2014

The Desert Collection in the Algarve


 Sandstone Cliffs Praia de Falesia, Algarve   1 and 2
     watercolours by Tessa Spanton (c)




Winsor and Newton Desert Collection limited edition professional watercolours.
Transparent  Phthalo sapphire,  Indian red deep, transparent orange,
Opaque  yellow titanate, gold brown with mixes shown above,
and dark brown ( shown below right)

I bought these paints to take to the Algarve with me as I thought they looked ideal for the reds and ochres of the sandstone cliffs.
Phthalo sapphire is a beautiful blue that is complementary to the transparent orange. They really sizzle next to each other. The transparent orange is an intense colour bordering on red,
I don't usually buy tubes of brown as I prefer to mix my own and the gold brown looks similar to gold ochre but I decided to buy them all. I wanted to explore the colour interactions when set next to one another and to see what mixes I could make from them.




I also made greens from this group. I used these for the pines growing on the cliffs. The greens produced are fairly muted.


above  View from Porto Bay Falesia watercolour Tessa Spanton (c) painted en plein air.

I have tested how the colours react with each other on wet watercolour paper,
 and made some comparisons with other colours I have, i will put these and my conclusions in another post.