Discover the qualities of Daniel Smith Watercolours as Tony Underhill adds a warm, cosy feel to his Christmas sketch using the Essentials Set of six colours.
The Essentials Set
The set comes neatly packaged and comprises six colours. It’s what’s known as a ‘split primary’ set which means there’s a warm and cool red, blue and yellow. The 5ml tubes look small, but the colours are highly pigmented so a little goes a long way.
Here’s the cool colours on the left and the warm ones on the right. As you can see from my swatches, all the colours are transparent which makes them ideal for glazing and layering, and for line and wash.
Six colours might seem a bit sparse compared with other sets of twelve or even twenty-four colours, but it doesn’t take a lot of colours to make a lot of colours.
The grid above, taken from the Daniel Smith website, shows thirty different colours all made using just the six colours in the set. So my top tip, for someone using the colours for the first time, would be to start by making a similar grid to get used to how they mix and as something to refer back to over time.
Order your Daniel Smith Watercolour Essentials Set for just £34.97 from Art Supplies with Painters Online
Happy Christmas
For my video demonstration below, I used the three warm colours (new gamboge, pyrrol scarlet and French ultramarine) to give my pen and ink drawing, Happy Christmas, a nice, cosy Christmas feel.
Look how vibrant the colours are and what lovely clean, clear washes they make!
Happy Christmas, pen and watercolour (16.5x21cm)
About Tony Underhill
Tony is an artist based in Bedfordshire, UK. He specialises in line and wash and is a regular contributor to Leisure Painter magazine. He prefers to work en plein air and is a keen urban sketcher.