Swatches

I've ben working recently on making swatches of my watercolor paints. In my reading of different painting books and articles, they all mention learning the properties of the paints you have. Which ones are more transparent, which ones are more granulating and how they change with the ratio of water to paint. So I drew up 1" x 6" strips and got painting. Starting with the outside and working in, I doubled the amount of water for each square.

It was interesting to learn how much water is needed for the different pigments to make them the brightest. If you look and see the Quinacridone Gold on the right, you can see that it goes from a very mottled dark gold to a very pretty creamy gold with just the addtion one drop of water! The Lamp black shows to be a very strong pigment as well, needing a lot of water to bring it down into the neutral gray area. The Viridian shows how granulating some of the paints can be even with a lot of water.

This was a lot of fun to paint. I punched holes at the ends and looped them all into an old keychain for easy management.

More thoughts on Watercolor pencils

After trying out the new Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils I'm finding that I like them a LOT. The color goes on smoother and dissolves more completely than their student-grade sibling Aquarelles. I'll post later a photo of a test I did between several of the matching colors between the two sets. You can see the difference on how the pencils dissolve.

I've learned that if you are serious (or even semi-serious) about a new medium, it's worth it to buy the 'Artist's Grade' version of that medium. It's better to spend your money on a few excellent quality paints/pencils/whatever than to buy a bunch of something that you'll regret purchasing once you try the good stuff.

Now would anyone like a bunch of Aquarelles?