Home › Forums › Explore Media › Watercolor › The Learning Zone › Watercolour Swatches – A Few Brands
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November 20, 2012 at 10:13 pm #990320
Hi all,
After dislocating my knee on Monday (again :() at work, I haven’t been up to doing much creatively. I was in the mood to paint but couldn’t concentrate, so instead I decided to do colour charts for all the paints in my collection. I thought I would share them on here in case anyone wants to see how a particular colour looks compared to others before buying. These are all the artist grade lines from the relevant manufacturers.Yes, I know, I have far too many tubes :rolleyes: When I first wanted to try watercolours, I made the rookie mistake of buying ALL THE THINGS, and though I find some of these convenience colours very useful, there are some that I have never used or that I can mix easily with other colours. I am giving a few to my Nan, and the rest I will sell on eBay. I do like having different pan sets though, small ones for portability and large ones for studio use, and at least pans don’t really go ‘bad’ like tube paints can.
I have done a page for my tubes (except Daniel Smith) and a page for my pans. The brands are:
WN = Winsor and Newton
DR = Daler Rowney
HWC = Holbein
SCH = Schmincke
L = Lukas
SEN = SennelierHere is the sheet for my tube colours:
The scan has mostly come out true-to-life, but the permanent magentas have come out very pink; they lean more towards red-violet when viewed in person.And here are my pan colours:
The SEN Terre Verte looks very grey here, but it’s a rubbish colour anyway. Really weak and wishy-washy, I don’t know if that’s how that colour is normally or if I just got a dud one. It took a lot of scrubbing and several almost dry layers to even get that little bit of colour on there. And you can’t mix it with anything else, because a speck of another colour is enough to erase it completely.Anyway, I hope someone finds them useful
P.S. I wasn’t sure what section this thread would be best in, so feel free to move it if you think it should go somewhere else.
Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.
Rebecca ~ http://artdragon86.wordpress.com/November 21, 2012 at 4:03 am #1174914Always a good exercise. You have some beautiful colours.
After dislocating my knee on Monday (again ) at work
Ouch! Hope it goes back OK.
Doug
We must leave our mark on this worldNovember 21, 2012 at 6:05 am #1174926Always a good exercise. You have some beautiful colours.
One of the things that interested me most was how different some pigments look between manufacturers, and also how the same ‘colour’ name can be completely different, eg. Lukas’s May Green as opposed to the Schmincke version. Also, there are a few colours I ordered after seeing their swatches online (that was all I had to judge from) and when I actually got it, it looked completely different in person :clear: I know that some people only like to have the minimum amount of colours, and I have had fun playing with triads/limited palettes, but I do think it is nice to have a few extra colours to choose from rather than having to mix almost everything (I especially like having lots of greens, though I know some people hate tubed convenience greens :D)
Ouch! Hope it goes back OK.
It kind of went back in after I dislocated it, but since this is about the 8th time I’ve dislocated that knee (have also dislocated the other one once), the doctor decided I should probably have it looked at; I have an appointment with a knee surgeon in a week and a half, so hopefully he can sort it out I had a bad fall yesterday when it gave out again and sprained both wrists, so I’m having a bad week Darn medical bills, eating up money I could be spending on more art goodies
Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.
Rebecca ~ http://artdragon86.wordpress.com/November 21, 2012 at 7:50 am #1174922I find making color charts to be very therapeutic !!
I tape mine to the wall in front of my painting table so that I can see at a glance what I have available in tubes even if they aren’t all in my palette. That makes hunting for just the right color much easier….
Actually, I have 2 color charts on my wall…. One of just the colors in my palette and the other is the colors that are not in my palette. So if I want a particular color that isn’t in my palette, I just look at my other chart and know which tube to go digging for.
Don’t let anyone persuade you that you shouldn’t have as many colors as you like
I’m a color fanatic and own about 60 different colors… various brands.. but mostly W&N, Maimeri, Daniel Smith and a few M. Graham.
I love colors….. lots and lots of colors… they are sooooooo pretty… lol
For one particular painting, I’ll probably only use 6 or 8 or maybe 10 colors, but I love having all the various colors available to choose from when starting a painting…
Sure.. I can mix colors.. and I’ve actually gotten very good at mixing colors.. but still…. there are so many gorgeous colors in tubes.. why not??? The only thing that constrains me is my budget
Sympathizing with the knee problems… I fell 3 months ago and shattered my kneecap and have been recovering from knee surgery….. hope all goes well with yours. My knee is recovering faster and better than I had expected !!!
Susan
in beautiful North Carolina
Retired and loving every minute of it !!!
Time to play......November 21, 2012 at 10:20 am #1174917Terre Verte looks way what is should is natural earth pigment if is real thing. often today made pg7 with some earth pigment real its i think pg23. and wn permanent sap green looks more what i understanded real look. which is years ago discontinued i mean real sap green.
November 21, 2012 at 10:21 am #1174918and to me is nothing wrong many single pigment greens.
November 21, 2012 at 10:24 am #1174915Holey Moley Freeholey, Rebecca! What beautiful charts you’ve made… that’s a lot of colours…
It’s interesting that in my quest to learn more about colour theory, I find my palette shrinking… From my collection of 40+ colours, I think I’m using less than 15 of them.
Burnt Sienna, PBr7, across all manufacturers looks different from each of them.
Sap Green and Hookers Green each are manufactured using a plethora of mixes and not one of the manufactures uses the same combination! Shocking…
Paint Names are certainly not standardized… but then, the actual pigment manufacturing process isn’t either… The very best way to understand your paints is to make charts!
I sure hope the surgeon can offer some help with those knees of yours… ouch, ouch, ouch!
And, Sashntash, I hope you’re healing too… wow…
Char --
CharMing Art -- "Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." Leonardo DaVinci
November 21, 2012 at 10:30 am #1174928Rebecca I really hope your knees improve it is a beast to live with and then you go and get both wrists!!! Yikes.
Your comment about May Green is simply an indicator of how unreliable and often useless are the names given to paints by manufacturers, this is particularly true in my opinion with Cheap Joes American Journey paints and Daniel Smith. However if possible see if the pan versions of the color provide the actual pigments being used, sap green for example from W&N uses PG 36 and PY 110 (a green and a yellow) while Holbein uses PG 36, PG 8 and PY 17 (two greens and a yellow) so there should be little surprise that the colors might be somewhat different.
Wonderful set of swatches and quite useful, thanks.
Bill"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable." (Robert Henri)
November 21, 2012 at 11:29 am #1174921Holey Moley Freeholey, Rebecca! What beautiful charts you’ve made… that’s a lot of colours…
It’s interesting that in my quest to learn more about colour theory, I find my palette shrinking… From my collection of 40+ colours, I think I’m using less than 15 of them.
Burnt Sienna, PBr7, across all manufacturers looks different from each of them.
Sap Green and Hookers Green each are manufactured using a plethora of mixes and not one of the manufactures uses the same combination! Shocking…
Paint Names are certainly not standardized… but then, the actual pigment manufacturing process isn’t either… The very best way to understand your paints is to make charts!
I sure hope the surgeon can offer some help with those knees of yours… ouch, ouch, ouch!
And, Sashntash, I hope you’re healing too… wow…
CHarM – I am totally with you on this. Too much colors to me are not useful – Three years to learn that. The more simple your palette is, the more beautiful the painting is.
Zbukvic & Castagnet have become famous and think they onlye use about 4 – 6 colors and lets not talk about Singer-Sargent and homer. 5 i think Singer Sargent used.-i
see what happens with all these techniques joined.
November 22, 2012 at 1:38 am #1174919and simple palette for work i think not otherways. which means not too many colours for single work.
ps. Sap Green is originally always same stuff but real one is discontinued i think clearly over 50years ago… and i undersranded pg8 is not very permanent.November 22, 2012 at 1:42 am #1174920Which paper you used and my Schmincke and W&N thing confirms PBr7 can look totally different in different brands to me W&N is more usefull.
November 22, 2012 at 2:18 am #1174927I wouldn’t use all of those colours on a single piece of work (it would be a nightmare :lol:) but it is nice to have a few more to choose from when deciding what colours I would like to use. I have also got fairly good at mixing colours and learning which make nice combinations and which do not, but sometimes I just want to squeeze out a colour and off I go (more for my illustrations than still lifes/landscapes etc). I just had a look at the little paper wrapper for the Sennelier Terre Verte and the pigment number is PG23.
The paper I did the charts on is called Eraldo di Paolo, it is just a cheap 225gsm paper from my local art shop. It has a surface like cold press. I wish I could find a decent cheap hot press paper, so far the only hot press paper I can get is Arches, and it is quite pricey…
I don’t have many Daniel Smith paints; the ones I do have are more of a novelty, such as the duochromes and the irridescents, as they are fun to use in fantasy paintings of fairies and dragons; they have no other real use, at least not to me. They were admittedly a frivolous purchase
Glad to hear your knee is recovering well, sashntash, I just hope mine is easily sorted out as well, as I’ll likely need the other one looked at within a few years. It’s annoying being 26 years old and having to use a walking stick half the time
Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.
Rebecca ~ http://artdragon86.wordpress.com/November 22, 2012 at 2:48 am #1174924Ja, ja, Rebecca, diese Sammelleidenschaft hatte ich zu Beginn auch.
Im Moment beschränke ich mich auf 16 Farben, plus ein oder zwei
“Sonderfarben”, die nicht zu mischen sind aus der Palette.
In Realität benutze ich ständig maximal vier bis sechs Farben.Yes, yes, Rebecca, this collecting passion I had to start well.
Right now I limit myself to 16 colors, plus one or two
“Special colors” that are not to be mixed from the palette.
In reality I use constantly a maximum of four to six colors.Ernst
Meine Seiten - My website
Malen ist nicht alles im Leben - aber ohne Malen ist alles nichts!
Painting is not everything in life - but without painting everything is nothing!November 25, 2012 at 12:51 pm #1174925Sorry about your knee…good luck in your talks with the body mechanic…err, I mean surgeon.
Love your charts. Somehow I never tire of seeing color charts like that. It is a great exercise in getting to know the colors in your collection, and to see the differences among manufacturers. Thanks for sharing, especially for the beneift of folks whose collections are modest as yet. That wouldn’t be me, haha. Like you, I have way too many colors in mine but I don’t regret buying them or having them even if my working palette only has a dozen colors on it these days. Because who knows when I will want to change up my palette!
I have given the hues and thrown the fugitive colors away for the most part as I will never use them. The one fugitive I still keep is Opera, just because I love how it looks. It makes my eyes happy! I don’t use it in paintings, I just play with it in my sketchbooks sometimes.
November 27, 2012 at 10:35 pm #1174916I have 24 tubes and thought that was a LOT!–silly me! LOVE your color-chart…should do one of my paints too.
Michelle--Respect your brain!
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