A while back I mentioned that some artist friends had asked me about my choice of colors and I'm finally getting to it...... It's a rainy, very gray morning here so I have a great cup of coffee - which I may paint when I'm finished with my post, Pandora playing Baroque - and so I proceed....
So - firstly - when choosing colors I consider:
- Permanence
- Brilliance
- Transparency
The manufacturers I prefer are - about 50/50 Old Holland and Winsor & Newton, then Sennelier and lastly Holbein. A note about Old Holland in their defense - I've heard and read some negative about being over priced etc. Well, they are expensive, no doubt, but I also find the intense concentration usually causes them to last 2 - 3 times as long as a comparable color of anything else and some of their colors just can't be matched in brilliance like Cad. Red Scarlet and Cobalt Turquoise Light. So in the list below of specific pigments I name the manufacturer because for my tastes and uses it's the most brilliant, useful color in that pigment range.
I will add that my own testing, while extensive, is not exhaustive, so it continues and I welcome comments about other colors in other manufacturers etc....
- Permanent Rose - W&N
- Quinacridone Magenta - W&N
- Permanent Alizarin Crimson - W&N
- Cadmium Red Light - OH
- Cadmium Scarlet - OH
- Scheveningen Orange - OH
- Indian Yellow - W&N
- Cadmium Yellow - W&N
- Cadmium Yellow Lemon - Holbein
- Cobalt Turquoise Lt. - OH
- Viridian - W&N
- Phthalo Blue - OH
- French Ultramarine - Sennelier - slightly more red than other brands.
- Bright Violet - OH
- Burnt Sienna - W&N
- Burnt Umber - OH
- Transparent Maroon - W&N
- OH Yellow Brown - OH
- Red Oxide - OH
- Titanium White - OH usually and Sennelier
- Transparent White - W&N
I Never use all of these colors on a palette at once. I usually use a limited palette, a red, yellow, and blue and like to mix even my browns ahead instead of just squeezing out some Burnt Sienna (though I do love W&N Bt Sienna), or Umber. You also see quite a few greens, earth reds, and browns that are not listed - I rarely use them for my own work, but keep them on hand for illustration/work/ faux finish purposes and some of them I try and then reject. I much prefer to mix my secondaries. I do use black sometimes - OH Mars black or I find Gamblin Chromatic Black useful, but again, like to mix my blacks too.
When testing your own colors, be sure to view the mass tone comparisons up close, and from about 10 feet away and look at how they compare when painted thinly - not with extra medium, just pulled out very very thinly on your canvas and then what happens when white is added...
I have three containers, one with the names of my reds on small scraps of paper, one with the blues and then of course the yellows. Once in a while I just reach in and pick one from each and see what comes from them as a limited palette - fun and interesting.
My watercolor palette is pretty much the same with the same colors from the same manufacturers with a few exceptions. I love Sennelier Cerulean Blue in watercolor, the W&N Cobalt Turquoise Lt, W&N Gold Ochre and Daniel Smith Quinacridone Burnt Orange etc.
Hopefully this is helpful - I'm more than happy to answer questions if I can or start a dialogue on color so fee free to email me.
Happy painting....
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