Choosing my water colour palette and brands
I thought it would be interesting to say a few words about the brands of paints and pigments that I use, so I intend to do just that.
I’ve put a lot of effort into choosing what colours go into my palette, simultaneously agonising over the artiscreation.com pigment database, Jane Blundell’s watercolour swatches and the art paint catalogues themselves. I spent several months doing this, not hours as you might expect.
Why? Because I feel that colours are an integral part of my style and therefore part of what sets my art apart from the rest.
Most of my colours (about 80% I’d say) are Schmincke Horodam® watercolours.
I like Schmincke because they come in full pans and they are poured four times. So the pigments are not just squeezed into the tubes like with Winsor & Newton. Schmincke also have some history behind the brand. I just like them! I can trust that they won’t simply stop making a colour one day (unlike Daniel Smith).
However, Daniel Smith does have some additional colours that Schmincke doesn’t offer. In particular, cobalt violet with its single pigment PV49, a light pink colour; buff titanium PW6:1 an off-white; gray titanium PW6; lunar black PBk11, a good-strength rare green earth, PG23 aka glauconite which is an iron potassium phyllosilicate and last but not least graphite gray (PBk10).
I really like cadmium red purple by Old Holland (PR108).
I’d buy more Old Holland, because they have been around since 1664 –Van Gogh even used them– but unfortunately they don’t offer watercolour pans. Hint, hint.
Also, unlike Daniel Smith, with Schmincke I feel there aren’t too many colours to choose from, so one doesn’t get overwhelmed, and there aren’t too few colour choices either. It’s about right.
Schmincke are saturated enough and wet well (for example I bought one of Rublev’s nicosia green full pans and I had a hard time loading the brush with pigment).
Not only that, but Schmincke generally has good worldwide stock levels. Now that I have more or less settled on my own style, I don’t intend to change any time soon. Does naturalpigments.com really expect artists to change their style based on product stock levels? It doesn’t work that way. All the colours in a range must always be available! And so it is with Schmincke. And no I am not getting paid to endorse them.
More to come!
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