Barry Herniman’s book Sketching Outdoors: Discover the Joy of Painting Outside (Search Press, 2023) is a wonderful inspiring manual to getting outside to make quick and lively plein air sketches in watercolor. I love his style which is both fast and evocative.
Of his color choices, Barry explains, “I have arrived at a palette of colours which are transparent or semi-transparent, to suit my way of painting with a series of transparent washes.” While Barry doesn’t tell you to use exactly his colors (none of my profiled artists do!), I thought I’d take a look at the colors in his painting kit and see how one might put together a similar set. I put them in my own chosen order (yellow to red to blue).
| Slot | BH Has (All Schmincke) | Some Alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| White | Titanium White (PW6) gouache | Any white gouache or watercolor. Schmincke Gouache is good for a plein air kit because it rewets relatively well (for gouache). A white gel pen could also be used to add those tiny details like stars and seafoam. |
| Cool Yellow | Aureolin (PY151) | Lemon Yellow (PY175) is similar. Hansa Yellow Light (PY3) is a similar hue but more opaque. |
| Primary Yellow | Pure Yellow (PY154) | Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97), Sennelier Yellow Sophie (PY93), or numerous other middle yellows |
| Mixing Yellow | Schmincke Yellow | There is no present color called “Schmincke Yellow,” but the palette appearance is dark gold, and I feel like I can see Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150) in the works in this book, so let’s say it’s that. Schmincke presently calls PY150 Transparent Yellow. If you don’t have this color, modern Quin Golds tend to be a mix made from it; Green Gold (PY129) is equally glowing and mixable, but greener-toned. |
| Yellow-Orange | Indian Yellow (PY110, PY154) | This is very similar to Daniel Smith’s New Gamboge (PY110, PY97). Schmincke also has a plain PY110 called Yellow Orange which is very similar. Also similar: Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65). |
| Orange | Schmincke Orange | I could not find this color but I suspect it is PO62, what Schmincke now calls Saturn Red, because it appeared reddish and lightly granulating in the pictures. Other oranges that could work include the smooth Transparent Orange (PO71), which suits Barry’s transparent style, or granulating earth oranges such as Quin Burnt Orange (PO48). Scarlets such as Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255) can also be substituted for orange. I like using Quin Red (PR209) to mix oranges. |
| Cool Red/Magenta | Rose Madder (PR83:1) | Quinacridone Rose (PV19) or Carmine (PR176) |
| Crimson | Madder Red Deep (PV19/PR179) | This mix of Quin Rose and Perylene Maroon is similar to WN’s Permanent Alizarin Crimson hue. Also consider DV’s Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone (PV19). My choice, Pyrrol Rubine (PR264), is a slightly warmer crimson. |
| Earth Scarlet | Madder Brown (PR206) | Also known as Quin Burnt Scarlet. DS Deep Scarlet (PR175) is a similar hue. Bright scarlets like Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255) or similar can also be used to mute blues. For mixing earth tones, consider Burnt Sienna or other earth oranges; my favorite is Transparent Red Oxide (PR101). |
| Violet | Manganese Violet (PV16) | Ultramarine Violet (PV15) is similar strength and granulation but much bluer hue. Quin Violet (PV19 Beta) or Quin Purple (PV55) are a similar hue but smooth and high-strength. My personal preferred violet mixer is Quin Magenta (PR122). |
| Violet Blue | Ultramarine Blue (PB29) | Ultramarine Blue is a palette staple for many as it’s cheap, easily obtained and comes in many varieties (try French if you like granulation or Green Shade if you don’t.) But you can still replace it if you don’t like it. In mixes, it is similar to Cobalt Blue (PB28). A smoother violet-toned blue is Indanthrone Blue (PB60), especially Daniel Smith’s (which is more violet than other brands). Granulating violet Ultramarine Violet (PV15) can sometimes replace Ultramarine Blue (especially WN’s bluish Smalt hue). |
| Middle Blue | Cobalt Blue (PB28) | Mixes similarly to Ultramarine Blue. Phthalo Blue Red Shade has a similar hue (but is not granulating). For skies, some prefer Cerulean Blue (PB36). |
| Primary Cyan | Helio Turquoise (PB16) | PB16 is usually called Phthalo Turquoise. You could also use Phthalo Blue (PB15; Green Shade is closer than Red Shade). Prussian Blue (PB27) is another transparent green-toned blue, but darker/more muted. |
| Turquoise | Cobalt Turquoise (PG50) | The only opaque paint in this set. Cerulean Blue (PB36) is also an opaque, granulating green-blue (but bluer). Manganese Blue Hue (PB15) is another bright, granulating green-blue. Or mix a transparent, non-granulating hue with PB16 above and Phthalo Green (PG7). |
When I look at the colorful range in Barry’s paintings, it’s hard to believe he accomplishes it all with just 14 colors! Notably, he doesn’t have much if any in the way of earth colors (PR206 is on the bright end for an earth color and is more like a slightly muted scarlet). There are also very few muted colors, yet he manages to make a wide range of values without convenience black, gray, or brown. Or even green! He teaches a course called “Greens without green,” and gets a wide range of exciting, bold greens using his blues/turquoises and yellows.
Here’s my “version” of this palette, from my own collection. I put the direct or indirect substitutions in the same order and orientation as Barry’s palette.
Considering Barry’s “green without green” pedigree, I probably wasn’t true to the spirit by adding a Phthalo Green in place of Cobalt Turquoise. If you ignore that, I can now see that every one of his colors is either a yellow, a red, or a blue – all primaries!
Without materially changing that rule, I still think I’d want to make some substitutions to make this setup work better for me before taking it into the field: like replacing one of the yellows with an earth yellow (e.g. MANS or Raw Sienna), one of the blues with a dark blue for more convenient dark values (e.g. Indanthrone or Prussian), and one of the reds with an earth orange (e.g. Transparent Red Oxide or Quin Burnt Orange).
Stray Observations about Sketching Outdoors
- Barry uses hot press paper sketchbooks (Saunders or Hahnemuhle). If I could get into HP for watercolor, it would make my life simpler since it’s also better for ink and gouache. I often find that HP paper gives me a lot of cauliflowering, but maybe I don’t mind if I get better at predicting them.
- The book advocates the use of a sketchbook for both practical reasons (an easy way to carry a lot of paper at once into the field) and psychological (you psych yourself up too much to do a ‘full blown painting’ if you bring a single piece of big paper stretched & taped to a board; a sketchbook is easier to fill with notes and quick studies).
- A fair amount of the book is Barry’s sketches with notes on the side about where and when he did them, which isn’t hugely helpful from the point of view of a how-to book, but is charming and demonstrates the point that a sketchbook is as much a book of memories as anything else.
- There is a wonderful spread on ‘Colorful Shadows.’ In addition to not having a convenience gray in his kit, Barry advises against mixing up grays too much – instead, he just sort of swirls the component colors (e.g. all the other colors from the painting) together a little bit, and paints that one, so instead of a flat gray, he gets randomly chromatic shadows where some spots are more one color and some spots are more another. In his work, at least, it definitely looks better! I’ll have to experiment with this technique.
- Speaking of shadows, working with transparent colors gives Barry flexibility when it comes to the timing of painting them – they can be done in the first layer, or flat color can be painted first and shadows added in subsequent layer. This allows him to choose the moment he most wants the capture the shadows, which will naturally change over the course of the painting session.
- Another excellent spread is on ‘Counterchange,’ the concept of a foreground subject which changes in value while the background does too, so that it goes from being a light subject on a dark background in one part of the painting to a dark subject on a light background in another. This is a bit of a mind-blown moment for me and something I definitely need to think about more.
- Barry does a ton of paint spatter, a technique I’d be self-conscious about doing in the field (mainly worried about getting things messy… including myself).
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this book; it’s worth a read! I found it inspiring for getting out in the field – even if I’ll never have the money to travel the world as extensively as Barry does.
As far as the palette goes, I find it inspiring to see how many beautiful, varied, tonally extensive paintings (including lots of greens, blacks, shadows, and muted earthy colors!) can be made from a bold, bright, transparent palette without any dedicated convenience greens, blacks, grays, or earth colors.