Replacing Toxic Watercolor Paints

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Lately, I’ve been on a nontoxic paint kick, trying to see if I can be just as happy with a nontoxic palette as with one that contains toxic paints made from heavy metals such as cadmium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and copper. This is mostly a personal challenge, as I think toxic paints are fine for adults to paint with as long as you don’t put them in your mouth, but I’m a messy painter so it does put my mind at ease a bit to be using the safest pigments. Plus, they’re better for the environment. 

So, what colors would I put in a nontoxic palette? How do you replace common toxic colors? And after a couple of months, which paints do I miss? Read on!

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Monthly Retrospective: August 2023

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In August, I painted 15 paintings – well short of the nearly a-painting-a-day I had done in July and in the past few months. I’d been furiously painting to get ready for a community art sale where I sold a few paintings – for the first time ever! – but after that, I was feeling lazy. Also, I backed off from the National Parks Project at 75% done, feeling a bit depressed at the idea of painting Redwood while it’s on fire.

But! I have still been goofing around with paint. I tooled around with swatches and palettes, and I thought a lot about skies! I kept up with #skieswithjt on Instagram; and I made a real effort to improve my skies through observation and self-critique, in What to do with those old sunset photos? Paint ’em! The skies I painted after that post have turned out better!

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Should watercolor beginners care about lightfastness?

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Lightfastness refers to the permanence of a pigment; some pigments tend to fade, darken, or otherwise change color with prolonged exposure to ultraviolet light, such as when displayed on the wall in a sunny room. The most lightfast a pigment is, the longer it can withstand the sun without changing color. Some pigments can last for hundreds of years. Others – fugitive pigments – tend to fade within months, unless kept away from light (such as in a closed sketchbook) or in carefully controlled museum lighting conditions.

My favorite online pigment experts, such as Bruce MacEvoy and Kim Crick, tend to base their opinions of various pigments in large part on lightfastness. But is this something I really need to care about as a beginner?

(My short answer is no, by the way, but read on.)

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Alternative Paint Suggestions for Kolbie Blume’s Painting the Wilderness: Light Challenge

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Golden Hour from a Kolbie Blume tutorial. November 6, 2022.

My first and favorite watercolor teacher/influencer/youtuber, Kolbie Blume, will be posting a new, free, 5-day challenge on Youtube on September 12. I’ll be participating once again, trying to keep up with each tutorial and post my work the same or next day. It’ll be the first time I’ve done any tutorial since Kolbie’s last challenge, World of Color! Even though I’m trending away from tutorials generally, I’m excited to be working alongside Kolbie’s rich online community for this one. I’ve participated in all of Kolbie’s challenges since I discovered their first Painting the Wilderness 10-Day Challenge in late 2021.

For the World of Color challenge in February, I posted alternative color suggestions for Kolbie’s palette. I stand by those! Per their new official supply list, Kolbie is still using the same colors, so please check that prior post for the general list of alternative suggestions. Below, I’ll post what I’m using this time (some new-to-me colors!), and I’ll reveal how my chosen alternatives went last time!

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Paintings Inspired by Video Games

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I’m not a big player of video games. I never developed the reflexes to play platformers, and I hate anything with stress or time pressure. But some games have such a great story, beautiful visuals, or such an engaging vibe that they draw me in. When I fall in love with one, I tend to … Read more

What’s the best blue watercolor for the dusk sky?

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When I experimented to find my favorite blue for the sky, I focused mainly on the light blue midday sky, with a quick nod to deep dark night skies. These days, I find myself often drawn to the in-between gradient shades of dusk skies: inky night blue at the top, grading to pale muted cyan … Read more

The Summer Palette, Mark II

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Here’s my end-of-summer reveal: I’ve been working on a new Summer Palette this whole time!

I took my time to build this palette (which is why this post is appearing at the end of summer instead of the beginning). I went through several iterations, taking out different sets of colors to see how they performed in the real world when I tried to paint my surroundings.

This is the first time I’ve come around to make a second version of seasonal palette. The first seasonal palette I designed, last fall, was the Autumn Palette, but I added the Summer Palette quickly after. Let’s see how my new one compares!

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