Three Fruits in Earth Tones

Three Fruits in Earth Tones

7" square W&N watercolour markers

Stillman & Birn Zeta journal

Today I have to go out for a medical visit, so I got in the day's art early and chose a medium I didn't need to clean up from. After the cherries I really wanted to do something simple. Reveling in the expanded color range of 15 colors instead of 8, almost doubling my palette, I decided to use the three new earth tones together. They looked like a harmonious warm palette by themselves. 

The results are pleasant. A little richer than a monochrome brown but still that same sense of old fashioned art, of time and mellow warmth. Raw Sienna is brighter, lighter and warmer than the Yellow Ochre in the medium so I was happy to use it to get a sense of tawny gold on the pears and the apple's yellow streaks. Without other reds in the painting Burnt Sienna reads true as red and fairly bright. Raw Umber made a nice cool dark. Overall I liked the effect together.

I might be adding more images later after my trip if I sketch outdoors. I'll be bringing all 15 of the markers, stick these earth tones in my pocket and the tin in my rollator stacked on my Beta journal. I'm thinking of using the Beta so I can work large if I want to or just put multiple images on a page or both. Naturally I'll also bring the water brush.

I have a pack of five Daniel Smith watercolor sticks in my pocket too so if I feel more like traditional watercolor, there's those and several pocket sets handy. Either way it'll be fun. Heh, I could stick with those but the markers are so fast and powerful the chance of doing something with them in relatively little wait time is higher.