I recently enjoyed reading Joyce Hicks’ Painting Beautiful Watercolor Landscapes: Transform Ordinary Places into Extraordinary Scenes (2014, North Light Books) and painted out a palette inspired by the one she describes in the book. Of all the palettes I’ve explored, I think this might the best one I have enjoyed the most and most wanted to emulate in my own painting!
Capsule Book Review
I love Hicks’ philosophy about looking to your own everyday environment for inspiration; noticing the scenes and visual elements that speak to you personally; and making those the main “statement” of your painting. She advocates for a very personal approach to painting, which I feel is exactly what I needed to hear right now, particularly as I move away from painting from tutorials and other people’s photos, and toward painting from my own life. Of course, I do this by reading a tutorial book!
Come to think of it, it is a little weird that these messages are juxtaposed with tutorials that instruct you on how to copy Hicks’ work… but I guess that’s the nature of the genre. I didn’t do any of the tutorials, but I enjoyed reading them as windows into Hicks’ process. It’s useful seeing how she goes about experimenting with composition and value in sketches, and interesting to see her painting process: penciling in contours; blocking in large areas dark-to-light; and finally adding detail.
Joyce Hicks’ Palette
I love Hicks’ use of color, particularly all the joyful violets that always seem to show up in her paintings! I found her palette (or my facsimile of it) extremely fun to paint with.
Hicks uses Da Vinci colors, and Da Vinci has made her a brand spokesperson; they offer two palettes based on her color choices, one with Joyce’s “Mother Violet” (Manganese Blue + Permanent Rose) and one with Joyce’s “Mother Green” (appears to be Sap Green + Burnt Sienna).
But if you, like me, prefer to scratch together a “Joyce Hicks-like” palette from your own library, I’ve listed her colors below. Click on the slot name to see my suggestions for alternatives in my Color List. Click on the color name to see my Color Spotlight for that color, if any. I’ve also noted the relative importance of each color from the number of tutorials it appears in (out of 12).
| Slot | JH Uses (Da Vinci) | Importance |
|---|---|---|
| Middle Yellow | Hansa Yellow Light (PY3) | 0 – Not at all important |
| Gold | Quinacridone Gold (PY150, PO48) | 4 – Slightly important |
| Orange Yellow | Gamboge (PY3, PY42) – see DV Dot Card | 8 – Very important |
| Orange | Benzimida Orange (PO62) | 1 – Not important |
| Earth Yellow | Raw Sienna (PBr7) | 8 – Very important |
| Earth Orange | Burnt Sienna (PBr7) | 11 – Extremely important |
| Scarlet | Vermilion Hue (PR188, PO62) | 1 – Not important |
| Crimson | Alizarin Crimson | 9 – Very important |
| Magenta | Permanent Rose (PV19) | 9 – Very important |
| Violet-Blue | Ultramarine Blue (PB29) | 4 – Slightly important |
| Middle Blue | Cobalt Blue (PB28) | 9 – Very important |
| Dark Cyan | Prussian Blue (PB27) | 10 – Extremely important |
| Light Cyan | Manganese Blue (PB33, PB15) | 11 – Extremely important |
| Mixing Green | Viridian (PG18) | 2 – Not very important |
| Convenience Green | Sap Green (PG7, PY42) | 6 – Somewhat important |
Here’s my attempt to paint out the palette. I had many of the colors on hand, or could mix something similar.
General observations about Joyce Hicks’ palette:
- It feels so bountiful at 15 colors!
- Several soft, warm yellows for giving her paintings a signature warm glow.
- Hansa Yellow Light (PY3) is an exception being very bright and cool, but Hicks never actually uses it in the book!
- Quinacridone Gold is no longer offered by DV (neither in the old PO49 version nor the more recent PY150/PO48 version; both PO49 and PO48 are discontinued pigments). I used DS.
- I do not know if Hicks used genuine Alizarin Crimson (PR83), or Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone, a permanent lookalike made from PV19 (which I used).
- I love that Hicks frequently uses Permanent Rose and Alizarin Crimson in the same painting! I have sometimes wondered if they are too similar. Hicks uses them for different reasons (e.g. rose for cooling to mauve, crimson for warming to a brick red for an old barn.) I am inspired to put them both on my palette now.
- Manganese Blue is an old-fashioned pigment; most companies have discontinued making genuine PB33 because of its toxicity. DV is one of the few companies that still offers a formulation with PB33, though it is mixed with PB15. Most companies have replaced it entirely with a nontoxic approximation made from PB15. I do think DV’s mix is much nicer than the PB33-free approximations.
- There are no blacks or grays!
Based on some of the most-used colors, I observed that many paintings use a triad of gamboge, permanent rose, and either manganese or cobalt blue.
Favorite Mixes & Color Techniques from Painting Beautiful Watercolor Landscapes
- Start with a dark color to set the values, such as the windows of a house or dark foliage. Dark black or brown mixes can be made from Prussian Blue plus any of: Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber. Adding a bit of Prussian Blue to Alizarin Crimson is also given as a way to make a deep, dark red. Dark shadow greens can be mixed from Prussian Blue and Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, and/or Sap Green.
- Mix mauve from Manganese Blue + Permanent Rose; Da Vinci sells this as ‘Joyce’s Mother Violet’ and indeed, Hicks tends to use a lot of this mix, for things like shadows, distant hills, and substitutes for boring gray (e.g. rooftops). Adding a bit of Raw Sienna or Burnt Sienna mutes it if it becomes too bright purple. Raw Sienna can also be used to drop in a sense of lightness in the parts of the shadow that are closer to a light source.
- Glaze to add definition to a dry painting; for example, Manganese Blue glaze to add coolness (especially to receding/background objects), Gamboge glaze to add sunshine, or the same color over itself to add shadows.
- Mix foliage greens from Manganese Blue + Quin Gold. The temperature of the mix can be adjusted in an “evolving puddle” by adding more blue or gold. Paint warmer greens to the foreground, and cooler ones in the background to create a sense of depth.
- ‘Indicate a floral presence’ by dropping wet Permanent Rose into foliage where you want to later define flowers.
- Bright tree-trunk brown from Burnt Sienna and Manganese Blue.
- Blue skies from Ultramarine + Manganese Blue.
- Using a palette knife or other scraping tool, plus a liner brush, to add light or dark highlights at the last moment.
As you can see, Manganese Blue is everywhere!
Conclusion
My favorite part about trying to paint in a Joyce Hicks style was making chromatic shadows with pink in them! Dropping rose into my usual Ultramarine + TRO gray just makes it pop and oddly makes it look more realistic. Even shadows that look extremely too bright when wet (e.g. just Cobalt Blue and Permanent Rose) still looked great in context when dry.