Watercolor Doodling!

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I’ve always been a big doodler, usually with pencil or pen. As a student, I was always doodling in my notebook during class in order to have something to do with my hands, which allowed me to focus on what the teacher was saying. (Whenever teachers used to say “Stop drawing and pay attention!” I … Read more

Loved & Learned from Kolbie Blume’s Beginner Landscapes

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Beginner Landscapes is a mini-course offered by Kolbie Blume in the course library for members of the Artists Co-op, their monthly subscription service. After nearly two years of watercolor, the most recent of which was spent working through most of Kolbie’s other products (like their 10-Day Painting the Wilderness Challenge, 10-Day Seascapes Challenge, and Wilderness … Read more

My 2022 Sketchbook: All The Paintings of the Year

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I thought it would be helpful, as I review 2022 and move into 2023, to review the paintings I’ve done this year! This may not include everything I painted (especially practice and swatches), but these are all the paintings that I was happy enough to save to my photo roll. The stats: TOTAL: 175 Numbers … Read more

Lessons from Artist Palette Profiles

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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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Should I only get single pigment paints?

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Single pigment paints are those that contain only one pigment, or color-making chemical. By contrast, mixed paints or “convenience mixes” contain multiple pigments.  A frequently-given piece of advice is to stick to single pigment paints. But why?  What are single pigment paints? The most obvious attribute of a paint is “what color is it.” The … Read more

Watercolor Top 8

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Dr. Oto Kano has a recommended color wheel palette, which I showcased in the previous Artist Palette Profile, but the colors they actually use most of the time – their subjective favorites – are the subject of their Top 8 list. They’ve actually done two Top 8 videos – the original Top 8 (2018) and … Read more

Artist Palette Profiles: Dr. Oto Kano’s Complementary Color Wheel

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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!

Oto Kano inspired palette

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