Winter Swatch
by Elizabeth Rose Murray
04/01/2021
The Colour of Persistence
This is a journey into light; an attempt to conquer the fear of dense, dark winter nights. Of the beautiful West Cork landscape being shrouded from view. It begins with the creeping concern of feeling trapped, knowing this will continue still for months ahead. But it also begins with love – of the outdoors, of change, of colour, of challenge. Many of us struggle with winter blues, but I’ve promised myself that after the strange and complicated year past, I will combat the dark and turn it into light. My chosen medium for this challenge is watercolours.
I know nothing about them, but I find their fragility both relatable and alluring.
Prussian Blue
Living near the sea, it seems the best place to start. I’m hoping for vibrancy as I head to the pier for photographs and I’m not disappointed. But the low sun creates silhouettes instead of replicating true colour in my images. So, I click an image on my phone, click another in my mind, and race home to try and capture it. I’m excited as I set out my watercolour palette and crisp, textured paper. I’m hopeful as I mix manganese into water. I layer it on and allow it to dry, before adding another brushful. But I’m too hasty and it bubbles and dribbles onto the table, the dog, and the floor. My first landscape wash is a total wash out.
It takes three days to rinse the blue from the dog’s forehead.
Vermillion
My husband taps the window. ‘Look at the sunrise,’ he says. I try not to let my heart sink – a sunrise, so late. I shake off the sluggishness that besets me every winter, and take a snap. Skipping breakfast, I cover the table with brushes, palettes, and paints. It feels decadent to start the day this way, but after my last disaster, I feel eager. This time, I’m patient. Vermillion strokes the page in fluid movements; it looks magical, I think. When it dries, there are lines where there shouldn’t be, betraying my clumsy brushstrokes. A watercolour tutorial, that’s far too advanced for me but looked impressive, tells me to embrace mistakes.
I hide the painting in a drawer and tell my husband I didn’t have time.
Cerise
Being a writer, I know that sitting around, waiting for inspiration to hit is a fallacy; you only improve through practice. And so, just like I would with words, I revisit the sunrise and try to do better. Thinking cerise might be an improvement, I work on two paintings at once, just like I do with my writing. It helps with my impatience and my heart lifts as something resembling a landscape evolves. I switch to smaller brushes to add detail. I look for purple but accidentally slather on brown. It looks like a toddler has come to my aid.
I use it for kindling, enjoy watching it burn.
Gamboge
Who’d have known there were wet strokes and dry strokes? That you can paint wet on wet, dry on wet, wet on dry, dry on dry? The beauty of technology as a creative learning tool opens up before me as I turn to simpler online tutorials. Tiny steps make me feel glorious and as it pelts rain outside, gamboge – which reminds me of daffodils – brightens my day. I learn how to remove paint to create light effects and fill several sheets of paper with spheres of different colours and shades.
My brushstrokes are smoother and with them, the weight of winter lifts.
Viridian
Several weeks in, and still unable to locate purple on my palette, I decide I should probably complete the swatch card. An explosion of new colours reveal themselves; red ochre, deep purple, viridian. Methodically filling in those little squares is strangely fulfilling, and I begin to match the outside world to my swatch card; puddles, misty hills, the shoreline, seaweed, and especially the trees. I’m surprised to see a red squirrel race along a woodland path before disappearing into an oak. Animals hibernate for a reason at this time of year. Their circle of life shrinks. As hailstone clatters down my chimney, I realise I’ve been looking too far, searching too wide, trying to force an inward change.
I move my gaze closer.
Violet
Moving further beyond the winter solstice, I notice dawn arriving a fraction earlier, and decide to utilise this time to collect images to paint later. Twilight tutorials become something I look forward to and I add in more rituals. Listening to an audiobook while painting. Lighting a black cherry candle. Making spiced ginger tea in a flask. I feel less afraid of failing and each evening, colours capture and hold my attention. One sunset is pure violet.
Soon, I don’t even notice the dark.
Black
I finally create a painting – A4, clunky and imperfect – I am proud of. It resembles what I had hoped to create the first time I picked up a brush; the urgency of fear driving me. But this month-long habit of failing, learning, and growing has become a comfort. Night falls as dark as ever and yet I no longer dread it. Instead, I welcome it as a time for fulfilment and gathering. Sometimes, I break from painting to walk by the sea; although black under the streetlights, I picture the colours in its swirling depths. The landscape no longer feels hidden, and I’m no longer trapped.
This is a journey into light.
Recommendations
Good Day Cork suggests you enjoy the drawing videos from Mad Jessie’s Instagram feed- the videos are created to nudge the ‘drawer’ in all of us.
Also enthusiasts may like this Facebook page : Water Colour Society of Ireland
Hot pick from our archive: Please do read ‘Centred’ columns from Good Day News Issues 1 to 3 where Aedamur Kelly writes about mindfulness in the simplest of daily tasks.
