Violet Sky

2/14/23 Green Lake

My weekly walking partner and I had been touring other neighborhoods the past couple of months, but we’re back on track now at Green Lake. Despite the dusting of snow Tuesday morning (which thawed before noon), the sun was supposed to make an appearance by afternoon. I arrived a few minutes early for our walk to make this sketch from my parking spot facing the lake.

Palette notes: After last fall’s secondary triad experiments, I have continued to stay with secondaries for the most part. Their subdued mixes work well for winter’s somber hues. In fact, I removed the warmer secondary hues from my kit and have been using a cool secondary triad. However, I also added a few more colors to make a full palette, but it’s definitely not a random rainbow. As I pondered in November, my satisfaction with secondary triads made me think I could go most of the year with that scheme if I added a CMYK-based primary triad for the summer months.

Somewhere around that time I landed on the palette shown here as my daily-carry, and it has been serving me well: a cool secondary triad, a CMYK primary triad, and my convenience “heavy equipment yellow.” I think I’d be happy with this palette year-round (though I’d probably switch to a warmer secondary in summer).

All colors are Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle

A sketch like the one above always presents a challenge: When I decide to use a secondary palette, I like to stay with it and avoid bringing in other hues. The cyan in my palette is wrong for another reason – it’s a summer-sky blue, which just isn’t right for winter. That means the sky must be violet. This literal colorist still needs to pause for a second before making the sky purple, but it’s good for me to get this shove. And I never regret the result.

By the way, the credit for those clouds (a happy accident) goes to the Hahnemühle 100 percent cotton again.