Artist Palette Profiles

I’ve been doing a regular feature, Artist Palette Profiles, for months now. In this feature, I look up the palette colors used by an artist I admire, and I compare my own colors to see how I could imitate them better. To be honest, I think it’s probably one of the most boring features I do for everyone who isn’t me. So why do I do it?

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Kim Crick has an amazing database of pigments and reviews of tons of colors, including brand comparisons. It’s an amazing resource. Today, I’m looking at her list of recommended lightfast colors.

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I’ve learned so much about paint from Oto Kano’s Youtube channel, including comparing similar colors to each other, and finding my favorite version of such-and-such a color with their Colossal Color Showdown series. Recently, I became a patron, so I’m receiving a steady stream of multi-brand dot cards to feed my color curiosity!

Oto lays out their palette in a really unusual way: it’s a circular palette laid out in a color wheel. Colors are chosen in complementary pairs so that the colors opposite each other on the wheel are always complementary. It’s an incredibly systematic way to keep track of color theory information!

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Carrie Luc, the author of Watercolor Misfit, specializes in fun, colorful, modern illustrations. I really enjoy her blog posts on technique and mindset, and she has a love of bright colors that I share!

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Tonya at Scratchmade Journal has been a wonderful resource for me as I research different colors. Her blog lists her 2018 palette, along with info about why she chose most of the colors, so I’ll attempt to offer alternatives that let you build a palette with a similar spirit out of your collection!

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Nikki Frumkin, aka Drawn to High Places, paints dreamy, colorful mountainscapes that blend precise line art with bold, wet-on-wet color blends. I love this art (I have several prints!) and one the cool things about it is that Nikki doesn’t really seem to use all that many different colors! A bold, limited palette can seem endless in the right hands.

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I’m really enjoying the Urban Sketching Handbook series: short, image-packed books that focus on watercolor on location. As a color enthusiast, one of my favorites so far has been Working with Color by Shari Blaukopf.

In the book, Blaukopf does list the colors in her current 23-color palette, though she cautions, “Don’t lock yourself into a final selection. In fact, I’m constantly swapping colors because I love to experiment.” Same!!

Still, let’s look at the palette listed in the book.

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Maria Coryell-Martin is the artist/naturist/visionary behind the Art Toolkit, my favorite gear for painting on the go (and in general). I recently took a cloudscapes class with her through Art Toolkit, and it was wonderful!

Here is the list of Daniel Smith colors that make up Maria Coryell-Martin’s Expeditionary Art palette.

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I love Claire Giordano’s quick but detailed mountain landscapes and I am a proud student of her Adventure Art Academy. According to Claire’s resource guide, her palette has changed depending on the landscape where she paints, and I’ve seen a few iterations of it, but this is what’s currently covered in her video, Colors in My Adventure Painting Kit. All colors are Daniel Smith.

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Kolbie Blume (@thiswritingdesk) has been an important and formative watercolor teacher to me, and some of my first “eureka!” watercolor lessons were from their 10-Day #PaintingtheWilderness Challenge on Youtube. I don’t know what’s on Kolbie’s palette these days (I suspect it changes regularly), so today, I will be looking at the colors that are suggested in the introduction to Kolbie’s two books:Wilderness Watercolor Landscapes and Stunning Watercolor Seascapes.

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