Colours and music, in fact, seem to rule my life, making me also a bit of a colourful character. However, colour features strongly in painting to reflect the mood you are trying to create. The heat within, or even the cold. It certainly makes a difference to your interpretation.

We all have our favourite colours. Mine just happens to be emerald green. This is what appeals to me, but whatever your choice, it is what may be central to you. This in turn may have effects on many things in your life and can even give you a feeling of space.

The colours we choose in our own domains make or break the feel of our living space. Mostly people want a relaxed feel, so are more likely to opt for pastel shades like blues, mauves and pale greens.

The same logic applies to our painting. If you want your painting to stand out in a crowd you need to use strong reds, yellows and oranges for example, to be very dynamic with all emotion flowing out of you. This will give your work an added warmth and you could always add a real gold to this.

Vlaminck loved colour. Colours can actually reflect our mood. For example “it’s a grey day” or “I’m feeling blue’. This explains how you are feeling at a certain time. Nevertheless, they stick in our minds. Paintings can be helped by using complementary colours. Colours appear to change when you put other colours beside them.

We all like different colours and also like to experiment with new ones. Make sure that you always have a white to mix colours and build up your shades from. Then, of course, some colours are permanent. Black, you will find, can block out colour. If you want to make shadows, shades of brown, whites or greys.

Very popular today amongst artists is Paynes grey, which is a mix available in the shops, absolutely ideal for water colours. The combination of colours being Mars Black, Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine Blue. It is also often mixed by artists themselves on their palettes, as it is a very versatile shade to work with..

At the end of the day, colour is very important to the artist. Well, after all, this is how we artists choose to express ourselves.

We mix our colours in so many ways, but it can assist you if you have a full knowledge of the Primary Colours and the basic Colour Wheel. So I can only suggest you go to your local art supplier and buy a Colour Wheel.

Now we have established our mood swings can be triggered by colours, so if you are feeling sad you would probably choose brown, black, grey, very dark navy or the like. These represent to me miserable colours, depending on your subject of course.

This is just my feeling on the subject. Fortunately this is not always applicable with these colours, it is down to what context they are used. Actually used on their own, any one of these named colours would make an interesting work, if put with white.

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