Watercolor Lessons from Rene Bull

Who is Rene Bull?

René Bull (1872 –1942) was Golden Age illustrator from Ireland. He is best known for his illustrations for “The Arabian Nights” (1912) and the “Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám” (1913). (from Wikipedia)

I’ve only recently discovered Rene Bull’s works. His work is delightful, sometimes comedic, sometimes romantic, but always very engaging. One of the most delightful things about Bull’s illustrations is his use of color, which is, to me, the very definition of “storybook fantasy.”

I’ve decided to learn a thing or two from him by making copies of some of his illustrations. Copying an artist's paintings is a great way to get to know the artist. You, quite literally, take a stroll through their brushstrokes.

Here is the illustration that I have decided to copy.

Illustration from "The Arabian Nights" (1912)
by Rene Bull.

Here is the part of the illustration that I decided to copy.

Detail from the above illustration.

Here is my copy. It was painted on canvas-wrapped board prepared with Daniel Smith watercolor ground. 

After Bull, "The Caliph Attended..." by Sara Light-Waller.
Watercolor highlighted with gouache.

I have already learned quite a bit from making this painting. I can’t wait to begin the next one. :-)

By the way, if case you’re wondering what’s been going on with my book illustrations, here’s the scoop: in order to keep myself fresh I sometimes need to switch mediums for a little while. Hence the change-over to watercolor for a few days. When I return to the book illustrations later this week, my eye, and my hand, will be freshened and ready to go.

New Watercolors

This morning I made color swatches for my swatch library of the new watercolors I bought yesterday. As you can see from the photo, I like earth tones. Three of the five new colors are earthy ochers and umbers. I joked with the gal at the store that I’m seeking the perfect Ochre/Umber. I don’t know why, it just seems a thing with me. ;-)

In the photograph I’ve placed the new colors alongside several other watercolors I have of similar color and value. I did my best to color correct the photo but I’m afraid the subtleties of the shades are somewhat hard to see. 

Here’s what Daniel Smith has to say about each of the new colors I bought.

Mars Yellow -  To avoid instant mud in your watercolors, select lightfast Mars Yellow. A wash of Mars Yellow adds gentle granulation to passages. Color-coordinate paintings using Mars Yellow with a Violet for subtle, muted warm grays.

Goethite (Brown Ochre) - Rich and warm, DANIEL SMITH Goethite is a dark tea color in masstone and washes out to a rich, warm tan. Goethite (Brown Ochre) is named after Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the German philosopher, poet and mineralogist.

German Greenish Raw Umber - A cool, earthy neutral brown with a hint of green, German Greenish Raw Umber is a natural for landscapes of all kinds.

Perylene Maroon - In the mid-yellow to red zone of the color wheel is this exciting find, Perylene Maroon is a semi-transparent super staining dark red-brown. Perylene Maroon allows glowing washes that can emanate from a saturated source emerging into sunlight patches. As with other staining pigments, create organic textures with salt application and lift pigment for highlights.

Black Tourmaline Genuine - Can be as dark as night or as pale as a wispy fog. This intriguing PrimaTek® color is made from a semi-precious stone thought to bring luck, dispel negativity and promote clarity of purpose. In washes, especially on rough paper, it displays exciting granulation with delicate settling and a tracery of spidery runs. Intensely black in mass tone, it lets down to a beautiful pearl gray.

I can’t wait to try them all out in a painting!

New Watercolor Palette

As I'm considering doing a watercolor painting for my novel cover, I've taken stock and realized that my watercolor skills are a bit stiff and rusty. Horrors! I have several books on my shelf with watercolor painting practice exercises in them  and I've decided to get on with it and start practicing. As I began, I realized right away that I didn’t have a palette made up with many of the “standard” colors being suggested for the exercises. The palette I'd been using has some lovely colors in it, but many are non-standard mixed colors that weren’t reacting as the exercises had led me to expect.

Last night at about 10 pm, I cleaned out an old palette and prepared a new one, a hybrid of tube paints and some partial DS watercolor sticks. I had to do it this way as I only have some of the colors I needed, like Alizarin Crimson, in stick form.

For those who might be interested, here’s a picture of my new palette, with the names of the colors listed beneath. (NB: all are Daniel Smith watercolors except for the Davy’s Gray which is Winsor Newton.)

Lemon Yellow, New Gamboge, Nickel Azo, Cadmium Yellow Deep Hue,
Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Orange Hue, Cadmium Red Medium Hue,
Cobalt Blue Violet, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Venetian Red,
Fired Gold Ochre, Burnt Umber, Sepia, Payne’s Gray, Davy’s Gray,
French Ultramarine, Indanthrone Blue, Mayan Blue Genuine,
Cerulean Blue, Cascade Green, Sap Green,
Rich Green Gold, and White Gouache.

I also added a few “extra” colors to play with: Lapis Lazuli Genuine (24), Rose Madder Genuine (25), and Natural Sleeping Beauty Turquoise (26).

As a note of these three last colors, they are all kind of problematic and I’ve really put them in here just for fun. Rose Madder Genuine is one of my favorite mixing colors, producing some of the best neutrals I have ever seen when mixed with a clean yellow and a clean blue. However, the downside is that it's a highly fugitive color with almost no lightfastness. So, unfortunately, it’ll fade in light quite quickly. I've tried before to replace it in my palette with Potter's Pink, which is much more lightfast, but I just don't like it nearly as much as a mixing color.

Lapis Lazuli Genuine is new color to me, a very delicate cool blue, perhaps too delicate to be of any real use, we’ll see. It may work well as a tint for cool white objects or snow, so that's probably where I'll try it at first.

New palette and color key

I’ve tried several times to use Natural Sleeping Beauty Turquoise in palettes and never end up using it. I’m not sure why. When looking for a Turquoise I tend to reach for either Ultramarine or Phthalo Turquoise before this one. But as the Sleeping Beauty is a very clean, transparent Turquoise it will likely create some harmonious neutrals when mixed with Alizarin Crimson…so I’m hopeful I can put it to some good use in this palette.

Percy2 completed

 "Percy2" 12"x16" Neocolor II and Inktense pencils
on canvas board prepared with Daniel Smith watercolor ground.