Making colour charts.

I started off doing this Rob, and then forgot to refer back when needed :( It's a good idea to restart and I might do this with different palettes.  At the moment I'm still experimenting with different, reds/blues/yellows, to find which I'm happy with.  Perhaps I'll end up with two or three sets, horses for courses so to speak. But some watercolourists stick to just the one tryptic, and it kind of stamps their style, which is no bad thing.

I suppose I think primarily in words rather than images - which is probably why every kind of chart or graph I've ever seen tells me slightly less than nothing; so I've never made colour charts, but have made lists - in words - of which colours work for me.  An example of this can be found in my e-book Oil Paint Basics, a jolly good bargain and just in time for Christmas!  Ahem. I remember a video by the watercolour artist Shirley  Trevena, though, in which she showed her meticulous colour chart, which she used to match the colours of objects, in this case particularly amaryllis - she's an astonishingly vibrant painter: her chart showed the Winsor and Newton watercoour range in, I think, its entirety.  Worth a look if you can find it, though the video was indeed in the days of video, i.e. some good few years ago. I wasn't tempted to do the same - apart from anything else, it required more patience than I possess, and I could never be as neat as Shirley.  But - on the whole - it's a good thing to do, and doesn't need to be as complete as that example: if you paint flowers, which do require a wider palette than most of us are likely to use, it would be helpful.