‘Color Strings’ and More studies – Diamant und antik Messing

I have done a few more – of a diamond, a lamp casting light on the ground and of an antique brass sphere. Cut diamonds have sharp planes, this is the only material in which I felt comfortable using the wet on dry method. The squares in the middle of the page are dry brush, the rest are in the wet in wet technique which gives soft edges. The pool of light gradates from light and warm in the inside to darker and cooler outwards. The brass has mixes of raw sienna gradated from cool on the top with ultramarine blue which gives the texture to warm on the bottom side with a bit of hansa yellow medium and winsor orange to neutral on the right hand side. All the mixes have a warm neutral tone mixed into them which I have already premixed on my palette recently. I have tones and darks (both opaques and transparents) leaning towards yellow, red, pink, violet, blue, cyan and green!! I have seen oil painters use premixed colors called ‘strings’ to make painting easier and quicker. It’s not possible to mix values beforehand in watercolor but I have thought of this version, and it works! I am very pleased with myself for thinking of it, it avoids a lot of hassle makes it pain free to gradate from warm to cool.