A common piece of advice for watercolor beginners is to start with a limited palette: only buy, say, 3-6 colors. But is this really practical advice?
More #skieswithjt
The #skieswithjt challenge continued through August and September! The notes from the later paintings are more detailed because I did them in realtime, where the others I filled in later. (It’s worth noting that I like paintings better after time has passed!)
The New England Fall Foliage Palette, or, Autumn Palette Mark II
Welcome to fall! Here in Massachusetts, the leaves are just turning, and I just came back from a long weekend a few hours north in New Hampshire, where the foliage is popping off. So I decided this autumn I would build a foliage-specific palette. Inspiration I combined lessons learned from my Autumn Palette mark I, … Read more
Monthly Retrospective: September 2023
In September, I continued painting National Parks; continued the #skieswithjt challenge; and I also participated in Kolbie Blume’s fourth challenge, Painting the Wilderness: Light! While I continued to focus on skies in September, my usual Summer of Skies is drawing to a close as I begin to focus on fall foliage. I slowed down toward … Read more
Palette Profile: Lee Angold
Lee Angold is a Canadian botanical and scientific illustrator focusing on plants and other natural subjects. One great resource on their website is a spreadsheet of pigments compared across brands. They’ve also done cool experiments like painting a blue subject from green and purple. I love a person with strong opinions about color.
Let’s take a look at their palette as of June 2021 from the post “What’s in my studio palette.” Be sure to visit this post for more about the reasoning for each paint.
Sunset Photos Part 2: More Mauve!
Last month, I began painting some of my old photos, and realized all the ones I wanted to paint were sunsets! I was a little disappointed with my results, largely because I kept insisting on using Ultramarine Blue in the more violet clouds, which kept them very electric-bright when they should have been mauve. So, I decided to paint some more, different sunset photos, with a special effort to keep the mauve clouds muted.
Artist Palette Profile: Kelley Vivian
One of my favorite gouache artists is Kelley Vivian, who paints gorgeous nature scenes typically in New England settings. She has painted numerous National Parks across the US, but her local park, like mine, is Acadia in Maine, and I just love her homey-looking Maine landscapes and seascapes, complete with lots of evergreen trees and rocky beaches. I especially like the way she treats golden hour and sunset light, with glowing sunlight flashing through the trees.
Kelley’s work was an inspiration to me picking up gouache, and I consulted her site when choosing my gouache palette. Here’s what I learned.
Mixing Dark Greens/Perylene Green Alternatives
A few months ago I mixed up some bright greens with my various greens/blues and yellows. This time, I decided to try intentionally to mix dark greens, using either dark blues with yellows, or phthalo greens with reds to mute them.
Finding Lightfast Gouache Pigments
As I transition from a watercolor-only artist to watercolor-and-gouache, I’m finding that it’s harder to find lightfast pigments in gouache, even in professional/artist lines. I love Holbein and Winsor & Newton’s gouache, but I’ve seen so many pigments in their lines with super-low ASTM lightfastness ratings – not just the typical fluorescents (which are also much more widespread in gouache), but stuff like PR1 or PR60 that are uncommon in watercolor because they’re notoriously fugitive. What gives?
Mix Your Own: Mission Gold
I previously explained how to mix your own version of mixed Daniel Smith colors, and now I’d like to do the same for Mission Gold! Recently I happened to be window-shopping their line and saw some good ones that gave me new ideas for cool mixes. That’s cool thing about exploring brands’ commercial mixes – even if you don’t buy the paint, it can inspire your own explorations at home, if you have the component colors.