Artist Palette Profiles: Molly Hashimoto

Molly Hashimoto is the author of Colors of the West: An Artist’s Guide to Nature’s Palette, an art book based on National Parks in the American west, and Birds of the West, which showcases her watercolor and block print bird art. I love her bright, clear, intense colors and joy in nature.

Colors of the West Tutorial

 I viewed the online recording of her April 9, 2021 “Colors of the West: Nature’s Palette” class at Winslow Art Center in preparation for my trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. Molly lives in Seattle and much of her art is PNW-based.

“It’s important to understand that you really don’t need that many paints,” Molly remarks in the class, after a relatable anecdote about choosing a ton of colors for a trip and then not using most of them. In a class with 3 tutorials, she used a total of 9 colors. 

Used in all three tutorials: 

• Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15:6) – skies; various mixes. On sky colors: “Some people like Cerulean Blue. I’m not crazy about that paint, because it’s somewhat opaque. It can have a rather pasty quality. I like the pure, clean washes that you can get from Phthalo Blue Red Shade, Phthalo Blue Green Shade, Carbazole Violet.”
• Carbazole Violet (PV23) – adds depths to blues, such as in the sky zenith or deep water; various mixes
• Quinacridone Burnt Orange (PO48) – Molly’s earth orange of choice (Burnt Sienna alternative); used in many mixes; used as a glazing color for red rock formations; mixed into PBRS and violet for a slate gray mix; mixed with blues for a Perylene Green hue

Used in two of three tutorials: 

• Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97) – mixing yellow-greens with Perylene Green and PBRS; Molly suggests making background greens and highlights yellower than you think you should
• Yellow Ochre (PY43) – base color for red rock formations, various mixes
• Perylene Green (PBk31) – convenience dark conifer color and middle green mixer (with yellow);  alternative mix: Hansa Yellow Medium + Phthalo Blue Red Shade + Quin Burnt Orange + a bit of Carbazole Violet

Used in one tutorial: 

• Quinacridone Gold (PY150, PO48) or Hansa Yellow Deep (PY65) – bright alternatives to Yellow Ochre for red rock formations, esp in golden hour 
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson (mix) – mixed with Yellow Ochre and PBRS for an interesting pinkish gray
• Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PB15:3) – Yellowstone thermal pools (“a color I don’t use often, but it’s definitely there”); also suggested as an alternative for Southwestern skies

Birds of the West

The book Birds of the West does not include a ton of how-to detail about the art, but there are overviews of how Molly does each medium. Here, she recommends only 7 colors, comprising a simple split-primary palette (Hansa Yellow Medium, Hansa Yellow Deep, Pyrrol Scarlet, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Phthalo Blue GS, Phthalo Blue RS) plus Quinacridone Burnt Orange for additional warm mixes & muting the cool colors.

Note that this palette differs from the “Colors of the West” lessons by omitting convenience colors (yellow ochre, quin gold, perylene green, carbazole violet) and including more primaries (pyrrol scarlet, hansa deep).

Art Toolkit Palette

Molly collaborated with Art Toolkit on their limited edition Pacific Northwest Palette back in 2020. The eight-color palette contained the same colors noted in the “Colors of the West” lessons, except Quin Gold and PBGS; it also had the Primatek color Fuchsite, which is a very light green, to “add sparkle to alpine lakes and ocean spray.” While I’m not a fan of Primateks in general or Fuchsite in specific (it’s one of the super weak ones), this suggests that something like white or Cobalt Turquoise could be a good addition to the palette. 

Conclusion

The “Colors of the West” palette seems to be the most canonical, in terms of what Molly actually uses in most of her art.

This is another palette that’s inspiring for how versatile it is considering how small it is. Molly Hashimoto showcases 3 very different environments she can paint with various subsets of these colors. Particularly interesting to me:

• Use of Carbazole Violet as a sky zenith color, where I’d normally use Ultramarine Blue.
• Widespread use of Quin Burnt Orange. Although this color is no longer available from most brands, it’s still available from Daniel Smith and is quite lovely as an earth orange.
• Inclusion of both Phthalo Blue shades. In a split primary palette I would not generally consider PBRS warm enough (or different enough from PBGS). But the inclusion of the violet allows a less violet-toned paint to be used. As Molly notes, both Phthalo Blues are useful, generally in different paintings, with Red Shade being better for subtle skies and Green Shade being ideal for certain bold elements such as desert skies, Yellowstone geysers, etc.

I just love palettes that are both minimals (under ten or so paints), and also contain colors I would normally consider unusual. You get so much out each color when the palette is small.