Embark on the journey of your dreams with this darling little watercolor kit! Carefully curated with the finest and most essential watercolor pigments, housed in the most charming pink galaxy tin, and accompanied by a handmade watercolor journal, (made by yours truly) ALSO – a handy little blank color chart AND — ANNND, 3 refillable brushes. Thats right baby.
…And to simplify the whole mixing process, I’ve even included a hand-painted watercolor wheel featuring the actual colors. I’m actually so proud of this set and eagerly anticipate the delight it will bring to other artists 💓
Want to learn more about this fabulous set? Click HERE to see more!
My current watercolor palette. It’s been quite a journey, with twists and turns, as I’ve navigated through various color choices over the years.
Like many artists, I began my journey with just a handful of colors, which I reckon kept things simple for me. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon Daniel Smith’s Essential Set of 6 colors in my adult years that I felt intrigued with my palette, and eventually found myself drawn to a humble trio from that set of Phthalo Blue, Quinacridone Rose, and Lemon Yellow. It was a time of both simplicity and exploration, and I thought I had all I needed.
Little did I know, this was just the beginning of my wild pursuit into the vibrant world of pigments…
Researching pigment properties and understanding the differences between brands and their attributes became my curious obsession. But let me tell ya, the more I learned, the more tangled up I got in a web of choices that left me scratchin’ my head somethin’ fierce. It was like wadin’ through a swamp of confusion, tryin’ to find solid ground.
LIGHTFASTNESS. Turns out, some pigments were as transient as a summer rain, fadin’ away quicker than a wink if they caught a glimpse of the sun. Now, ain’t that a bitter pill to swallow? You wouldn’t believe the sadness that washed over me when I discovered that so many of my beloved pigments were nothin’ but fugitive.
Btw, if you’re ready to dive into the depths of watercolor knowledge, I invite you to visit www.handprint.com. Trust me, it’s a can of worms that will amaze you with incredible insights into watercolors and the way they work.
That part of the journey eventually led me to a place of inner peace with my pigment choices, where all the colors I use now are highly lightfast and permanent.
32 Well Porceline Palette by Meeden
And after receiving this dreamy studio palette as a gift (Thank you mommy!!!) I decided it was OK for me to spread my wings and use all the colors that I love, and fully understand.
Now, I find myself surrounded with a vibrant spectrum of colors I trust and love!
Sure, this is much more than I actually need for each painting. Usually, I reckon I only use about 3-6 colors in a single piece, but the choices are there, allowing me to explore and express my creativity.
Along the way, I discovered the sheer delight of embracing novelty colors like cobalt turquoise and potters pink. Oh, how my heart flutters with joy as I swirl those enchanting hues all over my palette. They capture my imagination and captivate me, and have since become cherished companions in my creative endeavors.
I found myself filled with endless possibilities and a world waiting to be explored. With this in mind, I carefully curated my color palette to reflect my mindset and capture the essence of every hue.
WARM/COOL I made sure to have a warm and cool variation of each color, even for the earth tones. For instance, the warm embrace of Burnt Sienna complements the subtle warmth of Raw Sienna, while the cool allure of Indigo stands in contrast to the deep richness of Lamp Black.
CYM Furthermore, I wanted to maintain a CYM (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta) palette, represented by the vibrant PB33 (or PB15:3), the captivating PR122, and the radiant PY150. Now, my selection process went way beyond simply choosing a range of colors. I aimed to eliminate any true duplicates and ensure that each color could harmoniously work together, creating a color wheel of endless possibilities.
Transparency is something worth considering when selecting your own paints. Some are transparent, while others are not. Combining two transparent colors or a transparent color with an opaque one tends to create beautiful harmonies, but two opaques can lead to muddy results. Just a little tip to keep in mind.
Color Wheel My palette is designed to function like a color wheel, a clock of possibilities that allows for easy color selection and alteration. While I initially aimed to avoid repetition, I stumbled upon colors that rotated harmoniously, mimicking the motion of a clock hand on a real-life color wheel. The outer eight colors represent my earth tones, providing me with a newfound freedom after years of using those limited palettes consisting solely of transparent and non-granulating colors.
Ah, GRANULATION—yet another beautiful and exciting property of watercolors! Not all pigments possess this quality, but the particles and textures created by granulating colors offer unique effects that enhance realism and inject energy into a painting. I didn’t even realize I was a big fan of granulation. Now that I feel liberated to embrace it, I’m constantly seeking opportunities to incorporate it, even in skin tones, where it adds a touch of “noise” texture for a quick infusion of realism.
Single Pigments are a must. I mustn’t forget to mention, I learned that some popular color choices like quinacridone gold are actually just a mix of PY150 and some manufacturer-selected red, with the red often lacking lightfastness. However, PY150, according to handprint, offers plenty of permanence. So, I decided to purchase Winsor & Newton’s PY150 and mix it with my own reds to create myown quinacridone gold 😊
Finally, My Current Palette Includes:
PY150, I went w/ Winsor & Newton’s “Transparent Yellow” for the LF rating. This radiant and powerful gold-yellow quickly became one of the stars of my current palette. Its transparency adds a captivating depth even in mixtures.
PY53 Lemon Yellow (Nickel Titanate) by W&N. This lemon is unique compared to other Lemon pigments and is actually permanent. The opacity is both a blessing and a unique personality to work with.
PY35 Shminke Cadmium yellow, just a pure yellow. Although Winsor Yellow is similar, I like the brilliance of this yellow and decided to keep it around for kicks
PY154 Winsor Yellow. Just a real pure yellow with great lightfastness, and a hair-bit warmer than Cadmium
PY 110, my go-to yellow besides PY150. Very warm, nearly orange, breathtaking and versatile.
PR255, A brilliant firetruck-red known for its vibrance + warmth.
PV19, The same pigment as Quinacridone Rose, but this lightly less saturated alternative by Rembrandt offers true permanence.
PR122. This enchanting color is used in the controversial “Opera Pink”, but without the fluorescent component it is more muted and fully permanent.
PV14, Cobalt Violet. I almost chose this mauvy-pink as my magenta. It’s a gentle but still fabulous color, and mixes great into foliage too.
PB60, Indanthrone Blue is a warm, muted, dark blue and incredibly stunning. It’s great when I want to go dark QUICK, and sings with cool blues like Manganese and Phthalo Blue.
PB29, This is my own handcrafted Blue Ultramarine. I love it so much and use it faithfully! It’s cooler than some ultramarines on the market, which makes it more primary. It’s granulation properties are poetic and embrace all the colors on my palette.
PB15:6, Phthalo Blue (red shade) is a real beauty, I tell ya! Now, I can’t rightly say if it’s an absolute necessity for every artist, but it sure has its charms. As a phthalo blue, it’s got that powerful pigment strength that just goes on and on, making it go a long way.
PB28, Cobalt Blue. This expensive and timeless pigment is worth the investment. It’s a neutral blue that seems to want to clean both warm and cool with beautiful granulation properties. So lovely for clouds and dresses and shadows.
PB35, Cerulean is an exquisite cool blue that has been a faithful choice for artists since the 1800s. I love painting with the same colors the masters used!
PB 15:3, Phthalo Blue by DS has been my go-to for many a year, and I just bet it might be yours too. It’s a versatile color, one used as a primary in its pure form. They’ve gone and given it all sorts of fancy names and mixed it with just about every color under the sun, trying to sell it as some sort of magical convenience color or another. And not just for artists—it’s used in printers and all kinds of other handy applications, so its cheap (but permanent!).
PB33. Manganese Blue. This COLOR!!! Be still, by heart. Not to be confused with “Manganese Blue Hue”, This discontinued pigment is the crème de la crème of cyans. It’s the richest shade you could ever imagine! Although, I must confess, I don’t often mix it with other colors. It’s simply divine on its own.
PG50, Cobalt Turquoise is a novelty choice, but truly you cannot match the beauty of this shade with anything else.
PG7 – Phthalo green is like painting with precious gems. If I want to transform this jade-like-green into a foliage shade, I just add browns and oranges – it’s stunning! I love how, like the other phthalos, it goes on and on making it an economical choice.
Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Potters Pink, Burnt Sienna, PB6, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, I added all the earth colors because of their beautiful granulation values and connection with the masters timeless favorites.
Indigo, a perfect blend of PB60 and PBk6 already on my palette, found its convenient and rightful place in the harmonious symphony of colors.
Currently, my palette boasts around 25 colors, and I’m not opposed to adding more. With indigo on my palette, which is simply a mix of lamp black and indanthrone blue, I’m contemplating creating more mixtures to fill the empty wells in a similar manner.
While my palette may lack a true purple or typical green due to limited lightfast options, I discovered the magic of mixing PY150 with my handmade blue ultramarine to create a delightful foliage/apple green, and combining PR122 magenta with the same blue to achieve a stunning purple.
Try a unique color wheel to exercise your skills and learn your pigments.
And there you have it, my fellow artists—the story of my current watercolor palette and the personal discoveries that have shaped it. It’s an ever-evolving journey filled with color, knowledge, and endless possibilities.
So, as you embark on your own artistic adventures, remember to explore the properties of pigments, embrace transparency and granulation, and most importantly, unleash your creativity with a palette that speaks to your artistic soul 💓
When I consider the importance of practice, I think back to my days as a barista + baker working at a local café near my hometown. It was a rough experience to say the least and I’m still letting go of all the drama I experienced there. Now though, I can say it was worth it, because something magical I learned was… the power of practice.
…I still remember having such a strong desire to make fancy coffees during that time, knowing that if I could just make a lot for practice, I’d get much better at pouring latte art – which was a personal passion I played with at home on my own espresso machine. But only making 1-3 cups a day for myself, I just couldn’t get in enough experience to master the beautiful latte art of my dreams…
So, I looked for a coffee house to join and improve my skills. Yep, I’m that into coffee…
…When I found a barista job, I did indeed witness the impact making hundreds of coffees in a day had on my ability. It wasn’t long before I could pour perfect and beautiful latte art every time.
Customers would look into that warm cup of joe and find a lot of joy in the hearts and rosettas that greeted them. I felt so much pleasure in that connection…
My job also landed me an exciting opportunity to make coffees at IU, where I treated recruiters and office personnel with specialty coffees. That was a lot of fun!
I also took it as a chance to practice my rusty drawing skills. I drew whimsical designs on all the cups… giving them out was a lot of fun, and it was a great method of forcing much needed practice…
…After a while, the staff invited me to work in the back as a baker as well. I was amazed by the intense artistic touch that went into decorating their signature cupcakes… gorgeous icing flowers and elaborate designs that introduced me to a whole new form of art.
I was driven to pick it up. My first attempts were at best, adequate. But I practiced copious amounts of cupcakes every shift and each design brought me a little closer to aesthetic presentation. I was committed to filling the pastry case with sweet and beautiful works of art. And… I really enjoyed it.
..Every cupcake was made as if it should be my best, but even when it wasn’t, I didn’t dwell… I pressed forward with the next cupcake until my skills caught up and I was eventually one of the best in the bakery.
I was even invited to participate in the annual wedding show where we showed off our designs to advertise the business.
…I learned a lot through my experience. I learned that practice only has impact when done in quantity, with intention and structure. Quality is a result of that process.
In the book, “The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition”, Peter Hollins states that any skill can be learned quickly by applying specific principles of focus and strategy.. quantity over quality, until quality forms itself – I agree.
…Fast forward and back to subject, I’ve taken on a drawing mentor since rediscovering art in my life. You see, I am not a confident person by nature and I crave the drawing skills it takes to be able to paint any subject… so I figured some instruction may be in order.
Lessons with my mentor remind me of Daniel from The Karate Kid. Monotonous drills that do not seem to have a lot of purpose. Endless amounts of charcoal gradients, complex shapes, and steadying my line-work are both tiring and frustrating exercises that he’s had me do daily.
Guess what. I’ve been seeing the benefits unfold before my eyes…
I gotta say, when I see artists practice exercises like brushstrokes or lines, more often than not they complete a small page of various sorts all together, move on, thinking they got about as much as that exercise can offer.
…But that just is not the case. Said artist should put out hundreds, even thousands of each exercise to actually benefit. And each exercise should be in order and repeated in an identical and structural manner, so you may compare the current practice to the last.
Which reminds me of the day I moved all over my upsettingly large 19”x25” sheet of paper with gradient exercises, sometimes at the top of the page and others near the center or bottom. That is so me… completely ADHD and bouncing around all over the place…
My mentor had me slow down and start from the top lefthand corner of the sheet the next round, and work my way down in rows in an organized manner. Then I repeated the exercise on the back. Then another sheet, and then the back. And then another sheet… and even now, my mentor has me doing them every day.
He also had me do this with complex shapes, which I mirrored from templates and repeated many times, along with other exercises which I repeated as well… no rulers, erasers, or tracing allowed.
And it hit me. Practice means nothing unless it’s delivered in a strategic, methodical manner. You must fulfill the exercise in a committed way, as if that particular exercise will be delivered to a customer. But do not dwell on the specific outcome, press forward quickly and repeat.
…Might I also mention that when that I started learning guitar during my teens, I learned through scales and sheer repetition in order to play my favorite songs…
…so just like decorating one cupcake, and pressing forward to the next, and the next, and the next. Just like the coffees, pouring one and then another. And just like scales on the guitar…
There is enormous power in this form of practice, and you can apply it to any exercise you’d like.
Art is exactly the same way. One sheet of lines or brushstrokes has little impact on your skill set. One or two portraits follows the same principle…
When I wanted to practice wet in wet techniques with skin color, I chose a subject and repeated it many times since understanding the structural design of a proper practice session. The example above of my daughter is one of many sheets I attempted. My children are my favorite muses so I enjoy painting them, and it’s easy to put in the excessive amount of work it takes to develop a formula.
I learned a lot through this exact exercise. I learned that I prefer less glazes and to increase the paint mixture with every additional wash. It taught me to pay close attention to the consistency of paint in the mixture.
According to the master watercolor artist Marcos Beccari, a formula of tea-milk-honey consistencies coincides with a light-mid-dark value approach.
When you’ve pushed through and practiced many times, you become desensitized to the results and simply move forward. Being less attached to the outcome allows you to learn more abundantly.
Then, you can attempt a final painting having a lot of experience beforehand… knowing exactly what you want and how to achieve it.
In conclusion, if you want to improve your lines, brushstrokes, or even portraits and landscapes – you can’t bounce around or practice different styles… you must apply this form of practice many many times to the very same subject in a committed way without dwelling on the individual subject, and you simply must press forward in quantity to reach quality.
Good luck my friends, enjoy the process for that is where you develop your style, methods, and confidence!
I recently took a poll in my StrawberrySparrow FB group, asking what holds YOU back as an artist… is it money? Is it Tools? #1 answer was simply FEAR, and a close-second was a lack of a dedicated creative space…
(My daily palette and Oui jars for water)
…One of my members was actually the one who added the option, and boy, it struck me. This is something I too have struggled SO hard with over the last…. well, forever. So much so that I rarely photograph my work area because it seems so insignificant.
…The only time I had a good office space was when I was running my little vintage retail business online and had a great home-office dedicated to it at the time. But art was in the background of my mind then, and when we moved and I sold off my inventory I haven’t had a great space since.
At out last home, my office was literally a closest – converted into a great little artist nook. I loved it. My husband made me a tracing tabled and it was really all the space I needed and I didn’t mind sacrificing space because it was adorable and in our bedroom, in my safe place…
Now that we are building a home, and we are not settled in yet, I went from having an area the size of my end table (that’s what it was) for a little while, to now having this wall. I do feel a little more freedom that before but I understand all too well what it’s like to suffer artist-anxiety when I have to pull everything out, or move it to the kitchen table, or drop my brushes and not being able to have the light on because, family.
Vintage file, tiered cart and mason jars for brushes
Still, I’ve learned a trick or two because the struggle is real, and I wasn’t about to let a lack of a sacred creative space hold me back. If I kept waiting for enough space to make my life easier, I wouldn’t have been painting for the last 6 years…
…When I had my smallest space to work in, I bought a table easel to hold my essential supplies in. It’s small, but holds a lot. I love that I can adjust the easel and store my art inside. I loved this thing and used it as my little portable office… It really did hold pretty much everything I needed.
(I don’t use it as much now but occasionally I will when I am working on multiple paintings)
I bought this table easel from ebay on the cheap!
My biggest advice is to get unconventional with storage. Use jars, cigar boxes, tupperware, letter holders, portfolios, shelves, carts, boxes, totes, picture frames… If you don’t have a lot of space, good storage and using the vertical options of the walls are key.
..Go through all your things and think, how can I make my space sacred to ME, to make ME want to paint… and by getting all of the most important tools out in the open so you are invited to sit down and paint. Your space needs to be open and ready for you 24/7…
Find ways to store supplies that don’t take floor space. I used a letter holder for packing and hung clipboards with current projects.
My mini assistant. She helps with absolutely everything!
It’s ok if your space is small.. And it’s ok if you don’t have everything you need and have to wait on your dream studio. What you need, is a spot where a piece of paper or open journal can lay, with a small water jar, brush, pencil, and a couple of paints beside it. Start there… and add your favorite little touches to make it meaningful and cozy. You’ll be surprised by how much you love your teeny tiny creative space 💖
