Jill Gustavis is a watercolor artist from Western Massachusetts. On Instagram, she did a 100 Days project where she painted with different triads, which is definitely interesting to me with my newfound interest in limited palettes. She has some great blog entries; I’ve read her post, Magic Happens When You Repeat Paintings, several times. I don’t usually like repeating paintings, but she makes a great case for exploring, and I love every iteration of her example.
Jill Gustavis’ Landscape Travel Palette
Gustavis paints from a wide variety of triads from her larger color library, but she also has a landscape travel palette. I will include in this table her categorization, my slot, and the color name. Click on the slot name to see other colors I suggest for this slot, or the color name to see my Color Spotlight for this color.
| Color Name | JG Category | My Slot |
|---|---|---|
| DV French Ultramarine (PB29) | Sky Colors | Violet Blue |
| DV Cerulean Genuine (PB35) | Sky Colors | Cyan |
| DV Cadmium Red Deep (PR108) | Sky Colors | Crimson |
| WN Naples Yellow Deep (PBr24) | Sky Colors | Earth Yellow |
| DS Quin Lilac (PR122) | Sky Colors | Magenta |
| DS Lavender (PV29, PV15, PW6) | Sky Colors | Violet |
| SH Galaxy Pink (PBr33, PV16) | Violets | Pink |
| HO Mineral Violet (PBr25, PR122, PB29) | Violets | Violet |
| SE Bleu Indanthrene (PB60) | Blues | Violet Blue |
| SE Indigo | Blues | Dark Blue |
| DV Phthalo Turquoise (PB16) | Blues | Turquoise |
| SH Cobalt Green Deep (PG26) | Blues | Green |
| DS Jane’s Grey (PB29, PBr7) | Neutrals | Black or Gray |
| DS EF Brown Oxide (PBr6) | Earth Tones | Brown |
| AJ Transparent Oxide Red (PR101) | Earth Tones | Earth Orange |
| DS Raw Sienna (PBr7) | Earth Tones | Earth Yellow |
| MG Cadmium Yellow Deep (PY35) | Yellows | Orange Yellow |
| DV Green Gold (PY129) | Yellows | Gold |
| SH Shire Yellow (PY159, PV62) | Yellows | Earth Yellow |
- I love an idiosyncratic palette with a lot of fun, unusual colors! I had to look up a large proportion of these. There are a lot of unusual mixed colors or even single pigment colors that are unusual – ones that I don’t have a Color Spotlight for!
- I like how Sky Colors includes a wide variety of hues. I also think of certain colors as being ‘sky specialists,’ though except for Naples Yellow Deep mine are different.
- There are a wide variety of sizes in this Art Toolkit folio palette. There are double size tins of the main blues and earths (Ultramarine, Cerulean, Indanthrone, Jane’s Gray, EF Brown, and Raw Sienna). Extra small sizes are the fun sky colors (Red, Lilac, Naples Yellow, Lavender), and the violets (Galaxy & Mineral).
- There are categories for two of the major primaries – blues and yellows – but not reds! There are actually very few reds. Most of the “red” colors are actually violets. The warmest “red” is a tiny pan of crimson interestingly placed in the sky section. I guess this being a landscape palette, reds are mostly used in sunsets. I have seen very warm, reddy paintings from Jill Gustavis, but perhaps not using the landscape travel palette.
- As a landscape palette, you’d expect greens, and there are several I’d call green or green-adjacent (Cobalt Green, Green Gold, Shire Yellow), all categorized as either blue or yellow.
100 Days Project Color Library
Looking at the pigments Gustavis used for the 100 Days Project gives a different perspective on colors she likes to use. While the Landscape Palette is what she uses in the field, she used a greater variety of colors, between 1 and 5 at a time, for these studio sketches. I took a look at every color she used and noted the top 10:
- PV19 (used in 51 paintings out of 100). This includes 34 uses of DV Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone (the most used color overall!), plus 11 uses of M. Graham Quin Rose, 5 uses of American Journey Quin Red, and 1 use of DS Quin Rose.
- PB29 (40 times). This is split between quite a few different versions of Ultramarine Blue, but the most common is DV French Ultramarine (Red Shade), used 17 times.
- PY129 (24 times), split between DV Green Gold and DS Rich Green Gold.
- PY150 (22 times), always DV Nickel Azo Yellow.
- PB15:3 (18 times), typically DS Phthalo Blue GS. If you include Phthalo Blue Red Shade, add another 8 uses to bring this up to #3.
- PB28 (14 times), always DV Cobalt Blue.
- PB60 (11 times), split between several brands of Indanthrone or Indanthrene Blue.
- PY42 (10 times), split between several types of earth yellow, raw sienna, or transparent yellow oxide.
- PY151 (9 times), always DS Azo Yellow.
- American Journey Quin Gold (9 times), which is a mix of PR206 and PY42.
These seem to be the pigments or paints that Gustavis finds most useful in limited palettes (and/or those they were experimenting with during the project). This closely resembles many of my favorite palette colors as well!
Regardless of what colors were used, Gustavis’ 100 Days Project is an inspiring example of a habitual practice of experimenting with limited palettes, including sketches and color wheels. I loved following it and hope to incorporate similar practices with my own triad and limited palette notes.