I’m often asked how I go about creating a colour palette, so I thought I’d use my recent trip to the east coast to share how I hunt for colours.
I love visiting the seaside in the winter months, it’s very quiet and means you get places to yourself, perfect for going with my phone and looking for imagery that may be inspiring and I can add to my visual journal.
I love the vibrancy of the rides on the seafront. Everything was closed up with it being mid week and out of season for holidaymakers, so plenty of time and space for me to capture some great photos. I usually try to take photos of tings close up and far away – I’m trying together enough information so that when I get back to the studio I have what I need to develop ideas further.
When I photograph I tend to do a mixture of long shots and close-ups. It makes sure I have gathered enough information to work from when I get back home.
Next I will mix and match some paint colours from one of the images, as shown below, I took the colourful doors on the sea front as my starting point.
Initially, I will colour match as close as I can get to 3 or 4 colours and then play with tints and tones of them to see what I can come up with. These will go in one of my sketchbooks, so I can refer back to them if I am ever stuck for ideas.
I learned how to mix colours and started creating a colour palette for projects during my degree and it’s always been something I love to play with. Mixing inks for screen printing is much the same process. The possibilities are endless and there is nothing like a bit of colour mixing during the greyer months of the year to cheer me up.
