Supplies

Traveling With Paint: Climate Matters

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Art supplies take up a surprisingly large portion of my luggage. The one sensible reason for this is that I usually end up painting in a variety of locations, and I have found that different paints handle differently in different climates. And, as shown above, some do not travel well at all. I have not done … Read more

Mix Your Own Indanthrone Blue Lookalike

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Normally when I do mix-your-own lookalike posts, I try to find dupes for paints I don’t want in my palette. Either the paint has some textural problem I don’t like, or it’s too limited in use case to earn a spot on my palette, and I want to figure out an alternative means of mixing the hue so I can feel free to cut it. But I love Indanthrone Blue (PB60), and it’s an important part of almost any palette I create. So why try to dupe it?

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Spring Palette 2025

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Another season, another palette! I’ve been doing very little studio painting but a fair amount of plein air sketching this month, so I’ve been able to adapt my colors to what works for me in the field. I thought I would take you on a little journey showing what I started with, what changes I made, and why.

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What’s the difference between Burnt Sienna (PBr7) and Terra Cotta (PR102)?

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From left: DV Burnt Sienna; DV Terra Cotta; DV Indian Red

Burnt Sienna (PBr7) and Terra Cotta (PR102) are two lovely earth oranges that I will compare from Da Vinci. I pictured them above with Indian Red (PR101) to demonstrate how they are much more similar to each other than to an earth red, and prove to myself that Terra Cotta is really an earth orange. Because its pigment number is similar to Indian Red’s and because other brands call PR102 “Light Red”, I keep wanting to lump it in as an earth red, but it’s really very orange. It therefore vies for the same palette slot as Burnt Sienna. So which of these two earth oranges do I want in my dream palette?

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