Paint Properties

 This entry was originally posted on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.

If you really want to know the properties of your paint, each manufacturer posts that information on their website.  Makes life so much easier having that information right in front of you.

My favorite brands are Winsor & Newton and Daniel Smith.

Winsor & Newton is consistently the best brand out there. It is well known for their watercolors and I like how clean their colors are. I don't feel like they are too heavy or chalky with pigment or filler.

 Just look for your color then the T/O on the chart. 

T = transparent

O = opaque

 The chart can be found by clicking Winsor & Newton Watercolors

 

My other favorite brand is Daniel Smith. Their colors are so rich and creamy right out of the tube. Plus they have the coolest names for their paint. Wouldn't that be a great job? They are like the OPI of watercolor. 

The quinacridones are especially wonderful to work with.

 Their chart is actually a color wheel. If you click on a color, it tells you not only its properties but what other colors it goes well with. Very helpful.

*Update:

Daniel Smith no longer has the color wheel that is mentioned above. However, they have another color wheel that can be found here. 

They also have some helpful color charts that explain the properties of all their wonderful colors. 

These charts can be found here. 

Transparent vs. Opaque

 This entry was originally posted on Monday, January 23, 2012.

The next question you probably asked after my post about mud was 

"How do I know which of my paints are transparent and which are opaque?"

One simple test is to draw a line with a black permanent marker (like a Sharpie pen).

Now paint a line of each color over the black line. If you can no longer see the color, it is transparent.

If you can see the color on top of the line, it is opaque.

It may be hard to see from the photo but Cadmium Scarlet, French Ultramarine Blue, and Yellow Ochre are sitting on top of the line. This means that they are more opaque than the others. 

I put both Raw Sienna and Yellow Ochre on the chart to show my students the difference. They are similar in color but different in transparency. 

Each brand of paint also has a difference in transparency. For instance, I find that Winsor & Newton's Burnt Sienna is more transparent than Daniel Smith's. 

Sunday Secrets

  This entry was originally posted on Sunday, January 22, 2012.

Sunday Secrets (and not so secret secrets)

Since starting this blog I have received a couple of emails with questions about some of my painting preferences and techniques.

So I have decided to dedicate Sundays to answering these questions.

One question that Elizabeth from Montana asked was

 What brand is your palette?

 

I actually have several palettes. All of them are plastic. I keep several palettes around my studio because I like to work on different paintings at the same time. I can keep the mixtures I have made for a painting in one palette while I move on to the next painting and its designated palette.
So my palettes are these.

I have a John Pike watercolor palette which looks like this:
(I actually have 2)

It is the most common and popular in the States.

 

I also have a round palette which is a Robbie Laird palette.

That is the one that you have seen before. It is wonderful because it has several pans that come out of it for different mixes of paint. It is my current favorite because of the pans.

 

Then I also have a travel palette. I am not sure the brand. I think it wore off from so much use. 

This is what it looks like:

 

This palette I take with me everywhere since it is so convenient to travel with (hence the name of travel palette)

Finally, I have all sorts of containers that litter my studio. I don't know why I have so many but I tend to lose them among my things and can never find the one that has the color I need in it. Crazy. But sometimes when that genius shows up, you don't want to waste time finding and washing out a container.

How Did I Get Mud?

 This entry was originally posted on Saturday, January 21, 2012.

It happens to all of us at one point or another.
We paint mud without wanting to paint mud.
This is perhaps the biggest frustration with beginning watercolorists.
So how do you not get mud?
The secret is to know the qualities of your paints.

Watercolor is an inherently transparent medium. However, there are some colors that are more opaque than others. It is by knowing which colors are which that helps you to understand how to stay away from mud.
How does this help?
The opaque colors tend to sit on the surface of the paper.
So you put a wash down with an opaque color and you want to do another wash on top of that. Instead of staying in the fibers of the paper, that opaque color will lift and mix with that new wash. Next thing you know, that beautiful clear color has turned to mud.
So you can do one of two things:
Don't mix too many opaques together when mixing colors and
Leave your opaques for the top washes.

Keeping It Fresh

 This entry was originally posted on Friday, January 20, 2012.

So you have already squirted all your paint into your palette and it is hard and crusty by now. Every time you try to get rich color you have to scrub and scrub at it with your brush, possibly ruining that gorgeous sable and you still can't seem to get a nice rich dark color. What to do?

Instead of chiseling it out and deciding to start over, just spray your palette really well, put a wet sponge inside of it and keep it covered. Leave it for a day or two and viola! your paint is nice and juicy again.

Fresh Paint

 This entry was originally posted on Thursday, January 19, 2012.

I know that there are those artists out there that like to squeeze out the whole tube into their palette. Then the paint is dried in your palette and ready for your next painting adventure.

But I am not one of those. I love fresh paint!! The colors seem so much richer when the paint is fresh and you can get your darks and your blacks quicker and easier. No more wishy washy watercolors!

Just keep your tubes handy and squirt out a little bit at a time. More if you plan to paint more. Is it really that much harder to carry around a few extra tubes of paint?

Label Your Palette

 This entry was originally posted on Wednesday, January 18, 2012.

 

Another helpful tip in trying to remember your colors is to label your palette.

Just a piece of masking tape and a pen does the trick.

Arranging Your Palette

 This entry was originally posted on Tuesday, January 17, 2012.

 

One question I get asked by beginning watercolorists is about how to arrange the colors on a palette.

When arranging your palette, it is best to put all your yellows together, then all your reds, and finally all your blues. I also like to keep my colors that I mix often close together (such as French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna)

I also always position my palette the same way when I paint. I now know where each one of my colors is and I don't have to think about which color is which while I am painting.

The Two Must Have Colors

 This entry was originally posted on Monday, January 16, 2012.

I know I said that you can choose your colors for your limited palette but I feel that there are 2 colors that are absolutely essential to any palette, especially if you are a beginner.

These colors are French Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna.

I also call these 2 colors US for Ultramarine, Sienna.

They are extremely universal and versatile.

You will notice that these two colors are used by many of the great watercolorists, including John Singer Sargent.

 

There are many reasons why I use these colors but that will be discussed later.

Limited Palette

 This entry was originally posted on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

Are you one of those people that has a BAZILLION colors and don't ever remember which of your colors you used to get that perfect color? That is usually because you have a bazillion colors.

I highly recommend starting with a limited palette and get to know those colors really, really well before you add anymore. You will also discover that you don't need to add too many more colors. You'll know how to mix just about anything from the colors that you have.

My basic palette consists of 8 colors.

A warm and cool of each primary and 2 earth colors.

All the secondaries can be mixed (imagine that!)

 You may choose your own but I find that having a warm and cool of each color works really well.

This is just my list of basic colors:

New Gamboge (warm yellow)

Winsor Yellow (cool yellow)

Cadmium Scarlet/Red (warm red)

Permanent Alizarin Crimson (cool red)

French Ultramarine Blue (warm blue)

Winsor Blue (green shade) (cool blue)

Raw Sienna (earth)

Burnt Sienna (earth)

Every now and again I do use other colors but I find that I keep coming back to these 8.