I love Jeanne Dobie’s book Making Color Sing, which helps me think about color in new ways and has taught me lots of mind-bending lessons about using color effectively in watercolor. She shares her most commonly used palette colors in the book, so let’s dive into this color expert’s colors!
Jeanne Dobie’s Palette
According to Making Color Sing, Dobie divides her palette into different sections depending on their properties. Because my typical “slot” arrangement relies only on hue, I had to come up with different alternatives to meet the really specific requirements!
Transparent/Low Staining
| Slot | JD Has | Some Alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Transparent, Low-Staining Yellow | Aureolin (PY40) | Lemon Yellow Deep (PY159) |
| Transparent, Low-Staining Pink/Red | Rose Madder (NR9) | Cobalt Violet (PV14), Potter’s Pink (PR233), Quin Burnt Scarlet (PR206) |
| Transparent, Low-Staining Blue | Cobalt Blue (PB28) | Ultramarine Blue (PB29) |
| Transparent, Low-Staining Green | Viridian (PG18) |
Personally I don’t particularly like this category since I prefer staining colors for layering, but I guess if you like lifting, you want nonstaining colors.
Transparent/High Staining
| Slot | JD Has | Some Alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Transparent, High-Staining Yellow | (none) | Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150), Azo Yellow (PY151), Imidazolone Yellow (PY154), Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97) |
| Transparent, High-Staining Pink/Red | Alizarin Crimson (PR83) | Quin Rose (PV19), Quin Magenta (PR122), Permanent Alizarin, Carmine (PR176), Perylene Red (PR178), Perylene Maroon (PR179), Quinacridone Coral (PR209) |
| Transparent, High-Staining Blue | Winsor (Phthalo) Blue (PB15:3) | Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15:6), Prussian Blue (PB27), Indanthrone Blue (PB60), Indigo, Payne’s Gray |
| Transparent, High-Staining Green | Winsor (Phthalo) Green (PG7) | Phthalo Green Yellow Shade (PG36), Perylene Green (PBk31), many mixed greens from PG7 or PG36 such as Sap Green or Hooker’s Green |
Transparent Staining is definitely my favorite category! So great for glazing.
Other transparent, high-staining colors not in these categories to consider:
Opaque/Nongranulating
| Slot | JD Has | Some Alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Opaque Yellow | Cadmium Yellow (PY35) | Hansa Yellow Light (PY3), Bismuth Vanadate Yellow (PY184), Naples Yellow Deep (PBr24) |
| Opaque Orange | Cadmium Orange (PO20) | Pyrrol Orange (PO73), Benzimida Orange (PO62) |
| Opaque Red | Cadmium Red (PR108) | Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255), Pyrrol Red (PR254) |
Opaque colors lack some of the watercolor je ne sais quoi, in my opinion, but they can come in very useful for layering light over dark, or adding a sense of “heft” to mixes. Other opaque colors not in these categories to consider:
- White gouache – mix with any other color to get an opaque pastel
- Buff Titanium – like white, but brownish and granulating, for naturalistic pastel mixes
- Chromium Oxide Green (PG17)
Granulating
| Slot | JD Has | Some Alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Earth Yellow | Raw Sienna (PBr7) | Any Earth Yellow |
| Earth Orange | Burnt Sienna (PBr7) | Any Earth Orange |
| Earth Scarlet | Light Red (PR102) | Warmer Earth Red, e.g. Venetian Red (PR101) |
| Earth Maroon | Indian Red (PR101) | Cooler Earth Red, e.g. Violet Iron Oxide (PR101) |
| Granulating Blue | French Ultramarine (PB29) | Cobalt Blue (PB29), Cerulean Blue (PB35/PB36), Cobalt Turquoise (PG50) |
This is list has a mix of transparency/opacity; note that the PR101 Earth Reds are very opaque (other than those labeled Transparent such as Transparent Red Oxide). So are Cerulean Blue and Cobalt Turquoise.
Conclusion
This is an interesting method of organizing and it shows how much Dobie thinks about not only the hue, but the properties of her paints and how that changes their purpose! I normally just fill out these off the top of my head, but I had to really research my paints to know which bucket they went into, since staining in particular isn’t something I normally notice.
A separate category I’d want to add is a dark color. I did include some dark alternatives to several of these categories, but Jeanne Dobie’s palette as written doesn’t have one. She discusses mixing striking blacks with Winsor Green and Alizarin Crimson, but I find it to get dark darks from mixes without using at least one color that’s dark to begin with.
Dobie encourages the artist to choose their own colors and not copy hers, so I really didn’t need to use her blueprint at all. I could have just taken the colors I already used and maybe labelled and bucketed them. But I find it interesting to stack my choices against other artists’ because it reminds me that none of my colors are sacred or indispensable, and that different people find different things important. And there are lots of ways of building a palette!