A simple watercolor palette for beginners (and experts)

Описание: I frequently get asked what watercolor paints I use, so here is a quick run-down… As an experiment, years ago, I decided to try a very minimal palette with paint colors more or less matching the four ink colors in a standard desktop color printer (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). So, I started with just these Winsor and Newton paint colors (listed here with their pigment codes):



Winsor Blue (green shade ) – pigment code PB15:3


Quinacridone Magenta -- pigment code PR122


Winsor Yellow -- pigment code PY154


Payne’s Gray – pigment codes PB15, PBk6, PV19


Winsor Blue is also called Phthalocyanine Blue in other product lines, and Winsor Yellow might also be called Azo Yellow Light, or Benzimidazolone Yellow. You can compare the pigment codes to determine if two different paint names from different product lines contain the same pigment.


Payne’s Gray is a convenience mix of Phthalocyanine Blue, Lamp Black and Quinacridone violet, and even in its most concentrated form it’s not exactly black. So, to my four basic color-mixing paints listed above, I also added Lunar Black by Daniel Smith, which I mostly just use for very dark backgrounds, because its gritty texture doesn’t look good in mixtures. It does however have a nice velvety softness when applied thickly and quickly. Those are the five colors I use about 90% of the time, even now.


I eventually added the following additional colors, which I use only occasionally:


Winsor Green (yellow shade) – pigment code PG36


Winsor Blue (red shade) – pigment code PB15:1


Cadmium Red Medium – pigment code PR108


The addition of the latter two paints gives me something close to a classic “split primary” palette, where you have warm and cool versions of each traditional primary color, except I have only one yellow, and I’ve also added green, gray and black. It’s still a very simple set, which I like because I’ve gotten to know these paints really well and there are no surprises. I also like that most of them are staining pigments, which I prefer for realistic watercolor painting because you can get intense saturated colors or thin them way down for subtle glazing, and because washing over previous work done with staining pigments doesn’t lift off the dry paint (much). The downside of staining pigments is that it’s harder to correct mistakes, but I’ve shared some helpful error correction methods in my previous videos.


I’ve used these same 5 to 8 paint colors to make over 200 watercolor paintings to date, and that has all worked out nicely. I neglected to point out in the video that there’s at least one thing my palette does not have much of, which is texture, because one of my goals has been to make watercolor paintings that don’t look like traditional watercolors. If texture is more your thing, then you will probably want more sedimentary colors on your palette. But if you’re a beginner feeling overwhelmed by all the possible paint color choices, or if you’re an experienced painter wanting to try something new and different, perhaps a minimal palette like mine might be a good starting point for experimentation.


Anyway, thanks for watching!

[And many thanks to Bradford Yorks for pointing out the errors in my first uploaded version, which I have hopefully now corrected!]