Thank you for your report!
We have received your report and it is currently under investigation by a forum moderator.
What colours would you use?
Welcome to the forum.
Here you can discuss all things art with like-minded artists, join regular painting challenges, ask questions, buy and sell art materials and much more.
Make sure you sign in or register to join the discussions.
Hang on Studio Wall
This is a Studio member-only feature!
Join our Studio membership and save your favourite Painters Online content, from gallery artwork to step-by-step guides, to your own online mood boards. Create your go-to place for inspiration and learning. Plus, members can also enjoy a range of exciting features including monthly art videos and a digital magazine library.
If you are already a Studio member, simply login to your account.
Not a Studio member? Why not try our free 30-day trial - no commitment, no credit card required
Message
Posted
In a sky, in watercolour, I would not use Naples Yellow, or Yellow Ochre - I'd use Lemon Yellow, or Raw Sienna (especially the latter), Indian Yellow, Gold Ochre, perhaps. But adding Naples Yellow to a watercolour also introduces white - and you may not want that. Of course, the paint can be thinned with water - but it really doesn't take long to turn it into a soup. Experienced painters can handle this, but we're not all experienced - if you're a beginner, I'd leave the opaque colours for now - save the Naples, the Ochres, Light Red, the Cadmiums, until you know you can handle them.This is good to know. I'm very much a beginner trying to stick to three colours as per Paul Clark, he uses Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue and Alarizin Crimson. Of course I've just got Cotman at the moment - don't want to waste good paint when I'm learning just how to handle it and the palette. I've already tried the Cadmium Yellow *Pale* instead of the standard Cad Yellow hue (but still is a hue). I'd like a replacement for the Cobalt - which I'm finding too shouty blue if you get my meaning. I really don't like opaques, so will do myself a spreadsheet of the different brands/qualities wrt transparency or not.
Posted
Spreadsheet !!!!!!!!!!!! Lol. Just a colour swatch thingy . Play, mess, enjoy . Do your own thing. Sod three colours use the whole bloody box. Cotman are good don’t be critical. Painting, creating ,is nothing to do with spread sheets . Go look, go experiment. Go create…..l
Edited
by Sylvia Evans
Posted
And have fun doing it , Sylvia is right you will learn more by experimenting and you certainly will discover how the paint blends and flows . Remember when your starting out there is no such thing as mistakes, it all learning mistakes are what happens later when you should know better. Coleman paints are fine I use them most of the time, and only use better when I have a specific or special painting . Artist quality are better , but whilst learning and everyday they are too expensive, well for me anyway.
Posted
Genuine cobalt blue isn't shouty at all - if you're using a 'hue', though, it's almost certainly a toned down Pthalo Blue: and that shouts loud enough to blow your socks off, toned down or not. Rembrandt do a rather effective Cobalt Blue, try that. Genuine metallic pigments are more expensive, but a small tube of real Cobalt Blue should last you through a good many paintings.
If you like doing spreadsheets, by all means make spreadsheets - some people love 'em! Just don't let them get in the way of your painting time.
Alizarin Crimson is extremely variable in lightfastness - "permanent" Alizarin Crimson doesn't seem much better; I'd go for a quinacridone pigment, red, crimson, violet, magenta, instead. You can always darken it with a green.
Cotman - an awful lot of professional watercolourists use Cotman, rather than the professional grade: some say they fade - I haven't noticed that most of them do (Alizarin will). Again, I prefer genuine metallic pigments, though was quite impressed with the Cadmium Yellow (Hue) - wouldn't say it was a lot like real Cad Yellow, but it's a good strong colour.
Ultramarine is a good reliable blue, very useful in colour mixing, if you want something other than Cobalt.
Posted
Many thanks, Robert - much appreciated. Will try the ultramarine, I'm not too bothered about lightfastness. Interesting about the pthalo.
Re the spreadsheet, if you look at the leaflet with any cotman set, it's a coded message! So laugh away. One spreadsheet will save me pounds in paper and wasted ink. I have completed my swatches but they are not very helpful re: transparency. Cash is tight so I can't splash about too much. Although maybe a true Cobalt if the ultramarine doesn't satisfy.
Thanks again
Norrette
Posted
Not laughing at all Norrette ,spreadsheets just don’t seem to tally with colour mixing. To me it’s about exploration and trial and error. Doesn’t cost a lot for a few brush strokes o a piece of paper and it becomes your own. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. Robert is always Mr Nice .
Edited
by Sylvia Evans
Posted
A while ago, I made a big colour swatch thingy (like the paint sample leaflets you get in a DIY shop) of all the paints I have in my haphazzard collection, labelled with paint name and brand. Because the sticker on the tube never matches what comes out of the tube. It helped a lot in finding out what I use most and what I use very little of.
I suppose it's a speadsheet in paint form 😂
This post has been removed as it violates our forum rules and guidelines.
Posted
I've been painting so long now that I've probably used just about every colour out there, and have also learned to mix the colours I want. It's not really that hard, and all one needs is the pigment number, just to be sure you're not getting some substitute, and around 12 basic colours. For those who really want to study this, the Michael Wilcox School of Colour offers a system based on White, Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Violet, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Lemon (Hansa) Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Pthalo Green, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine, and Pthalo Blue. His contention is that you can mix so many hues from that lot that you really never need anything else.
Wilcox offers books, paint ranges, even palettes with printed guides to the colours needed in any given mixture. I am not a salesman for Michael Wilcox - I do use his products, and method; but I supplement it with some of the colours I grew up with, that have a heft which I'm not at all sure mixing from others can offer. BUT - it is a sound system; and it can save beginner and intermediate painters an almost incalculable amount of time and experimentation - to take one example: you might think "red and yellow make orange", and so reach for any red and any yellow and expect to get orange out of it. The difference between a Cad Red and Cad Yellow, or Crimson and Lemon, will however be markedly different. And one more - blue and red make violet: well now..... you could be trying all sorts of mixes there, and ending up with a brown more suitable for the banks of a pond, not the violet or purple you were looking for.
I can say this much of the Wilcox method - you won't make either mistake if you use it. His book is worth buying, even if you don't use his other products: because it tells you about the chemistry, the science of colour mixing - if that sounds duller than spreadsheets, it really isn't: I wish I'd known the principles he advocates 50 years ago. But you do learn them eventually - by trial and error. Mostly error.
My point, to labour it heavily: colour swatches are good to have, especially when you just can't think of the colour that would really work - I remember that Shirley Trevena has a good video/dvd about that. But having the knowledge tucked away in your head that the split-palette approach will enable you to mix almost anything, just by thinking about the biases of the colours you're using, could cut your learning process by (let's invent a number, eh?) 80%. Anyway, by a lot.