J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

The daubs of different coloured watercolour at the top right of this page were made while Turner was working on the watercolour sketch of Crichton Castle on folio 5 (D13818; CLXX 4). Although they may just be the result of Turner removing excess paint from his brush, their arrangement on the page suggests that they may have been painted deliberately to test the colours before applying them to the picture. The overlaying of blue and yellow blotches to create a small patch of green and the mixing of blue and red to create mauve or violet-grey may represent experiments in mixing primary colours to create secondary colours, all of which were used in the painting.