Pyramid Color Chart of Yellows with Transparent Pyrrol Orange

I now have a pyramid watercolor chart which is a quick visual summary of my favorite yellow mixes with Daniel Smith Transparent Pyrrol Orange. I had done 18 mixes and chose these ten. I did not include DS Hansa Yellow Light and WInsor & Newton Yellow Ochre in the chart since they are already part of my permanent palette.

My Current Travel Palette

No matter where you are in your learning path, it's always good to take classes to learn something new, refresh skills and be challenged to do things you wouldn't normally do. I am taking a class from Liz Steel called SketchingNow Watercolours that begins 10 Jan 2018. She does  mostly sketchbook work and is a trained architect. She has a much looser and wetter style of painting than I do and I'd like to learn more of how she approaches watercolors.

Many artists like to take stock of their current materials and Liz is no different. She suggested that the students draw and paint out their current watercolor palettes and make notes of what paints are included. Here is my current set of mostly Daniel Smith, a few Winsor & Newton and solo Holbein, Schmincke and Sennelier watercolors. Palettes are so much more interesting painted out because the color can be seen. It's surprising how different a dry pan of paint can be from a painted swatch on paper.

A new color chart

This chart is a comparison of the same pigment of PY175 as prepared by two manufacturers, Daniel Smith in their Lemon Yellow, and Winsor & Newton with their Winsor Lemon, mixed with Daniel Smith's Transparent Pyrrol Orange. In this case there's not much of a difference. The only difference I notice is for Lemon Yellow in the center where the mix is lighter in value than the chart below's corresponding box. I didn't start with as much Transparent Pyrrol Orange pigment to make my mixes and was running out in my Lemon Yellow - TPO chart.

Nandina in the fall

Beautiful nandina, or heavenly bamboo, in the fall. Not all of the leaves change color, but the ones that do get this glorious rich red color. Some of these leaves were done wet into wet, others were layers of glazing, paint, let it dry, add another layer of paint. The shadows are always interesting to try to capture especially with double or triple cast shadows. Sometimes, I wonder where exactly is all the the light coming from? Prints will be available soon in the shop.

Color Chart with Neutrals

Here is my latest extended color mix chart of the neutrals in one of my watercolor palettes mixed with the other 23 colors in the palette. It's time consuming to do, but extremely satisfying as each color mix is done.

Viola Botanical Illustration

Here is a botanical illustration in watercolor that I did of Luktviol, viola odorata. It is from an exercise I did in a Botanical Art Sketchbook workshop.