Autumn Japanese Gansai Watercolor Set
Details
Color Breakdown:
37 - Senkouhi - Fresh bright crimson
14 - Ake - When used for more traditional colours this refers to a more orange toned red; for modern colours it is usually a paler red. In this instance the former is more accurate.
35 - Seidou - This deep green usually translates to mean ‘bronze’ but also shares its name with ‘shrine’; picture the aged bronze statues of a Japanese temple.
7 - Gunjou - Ultramarine - in translation this colour means across the sea, referring to the rare lapis that was used to make the pigment. Gunjou however refers to the pigment made from crushed azurite, not lapis.
224 - Jinkou-cha - Argarwood tea - named after the specialised wood that is commonly used in perfumes and incense.
59 - Akagane - Copper or, more literally, red-gold
219 - Rikyuu-Nezumi - In translation this colour combines ‘dark green’ and ‘mouse’ but in practice it is far lighter than such a name suggests.
207 - Sakura-iro - Cherry blossom - named after the much beloved sakura season in Japan.
26 - Ugoisucha-midori - Olive brown or nightingale tea green? The Japanese are good competition for the Brits when it comes to their love of tea, apparent in their colour naming!
42 - Kurocha - Black tea
3 - Senkouki - Fresh bright yellow
38 - Kodai-murasaki - Ancient purple - due to the cost of the pigment, purple was traditionally associated with wealth in Japan and ordinary people were not permitted to wear it.
225 - Bara - Rose
223 - Kuchiba - This dark brown literally means ‘decayed leaves’ but more commonly translates to the English colour russet brown.
28 - Seiji - This colour refers to celadon which is pottery characterised by its jade green glaze, and has also been known as secret colour due to the mystery of its beauty…
203 - Kurogin-iro - Black-silver
34 - Hadairo - flesh
54 - Aaraishu - Washed vermillon
45 - Kincha - Gold tea
Choosing Keeping presents 4 palettes depicting each season, having picked out (in a way by no means prescriptive or exhaustive) some colours of leaves, trees, flowers, and feelings propriertary to winter, spring, summer and winter. There is no overlap in terms of colours between the 4 season sets, each set includes 20 distinct colours. Also consider Swiss painter Johannes Itten's (1888 – 1967) seasonal colour theory - four colour palettes for four types of people each under the sun of a different season - a sort of painter's Yin and Yang if you will.
Included is a blank letterpress swatch card featuring each individual colour name to be painted in for colour referencing. This can come in handy as appearances can be deceiving and each colour is only revealed once wet and set to paper!