My Palette

On Saturday, I finished painting out wash lines of all the watercolor paints I have with a view to using this as a tool to help me analyze my own palette. Setting out your own palette of colors is dependent on two things aside from availability (I've got access to pretty much any paints I can afford), what you paint (subject matter) and how you like to mix colors. What I'm looking for initially is to get a fairly even progression around the color wheel and to find a warm and a cool version of each primary color that I feel will be workable in mixing. To that end, I spent Saturday afternoon finishing my paint-out of wash lines of each tube of watercolor paint that I own.

The colors I've chosen initially are:

• Cadmium Yellow Light
• Nickel Azo Yellow
• New Gamboge
• Cadmium Orange
• Organic Vermillion
• Quinacridone Burnt Orange
• Carmine
• Quinacridone Red
• Opera
• Quinacridone Magenta
• Rose of Ultramarine
• Carbazole Violet
• Manganese Blue
• Winsor Blue (a Winsor & Newton color)
• French Ultramarine
• Ultramarine Turquoise
• Payne's Gray
• Prussian Green
• Undersea Green

• Green Gold
• Raw Sienna
• Burnt Umber
• Van Dyck Brown

That leaves one spot open for another color. So if I spot a gap in my ability to mix the colors I want, I have room to add. Or if I think I need a Mineral Violet or similar color, there's room for it. Another possibility is Italian Burnt Sienna, a nice earth color that could be useful here in the land of red rock formations!


Now it just remains to put this one together and to paint out the color combinations.  There's a big task!