Paint - So many kinds, where to start?

Which paint manufacturer you choose will depend on how you plan to use your paints. There are those that dry so hard it is difficult to rewet them. They aren't very practical for filling pans and taking on the road.  If you are working in a studio with a tray palette rewetting may not be a problem and it doesn’t matter if your paint dries out as you can just add a bit more from the tube.

If you travel, bringing along all of your tubes may not be practical, in which case you will either want to fill pans or load a folding palette in which case, you will need your paints to dry enough not to slide around while you're traveling but still rewet. You may want to avoid those using honey in the binder or other substances that don't allow the paint to dry sufficiently. You should also avoid QoR, M.Graham and Sennelier. They are best used fresh from the tube and do not rewet well if you put them in pans so they are better for studio work. QoR does offer a pan version as do several other manufacturers such as Winsor and Newton. Daniel Smith now offers pans but you must buy them in a palette; you cannot buy them individually at this time. You  can adjust them a bit by adding gum arabic but best to just buy a brand that rewests. If you're going to both travel and do studio, better to stick to one set of paints for consistency rather than, say, using Daniel Smith for plein air and QoR in the studio. Not only is it difficult to switch from the feel of one watercolor to another but it gets very expensive having two sets of colors. It also messes with your consistency as every manufacturer has their own formula and the Ultramarine and Raw Umber mixed together from one manufacturer may not make the same color when mixed from another. They also don't behave quite the same when you are picking them up, adding water and manipulating the paint. Consistency is the key.

Perhaps permanence isn’t an issue. But if you want your paintings to look the same years from now, try to avoid fugitive colors like genuine rose madder or alizarin crimson. Fugitive means exactly what it sounds like. They don't last. They fade or the color shifts.  If you don’t care about how many pigments are used to produce a color or what they name it, that’s fine. You get used to what you have and how it mixes with other colors. I prefer single pigment colors so I know what I'll get when I mix them. Mission Gold and Cheap Joe's American Journey brand are good paints but they have interesting names so you'll need to check the pigments to see what exactly that color is. For instance Joe's Blue is really Phthalo Blue green shade. Winsor and Newton's Winsor  Blue is also Phthalo Blue green shade. I prefer standard names so I know what pigment I'm using. Personally, I'd rather know it's carbazole violet than Purple Passion.

I use Daniel Smith. When I go to a workshop where the teacher, for instance, uses Mission Gold, I then have to research the names of the Mission Gold and how they relate to my Daniel Smith, as I'm not going out and buying a set of Mission Gold Watercolors for one workshop. Most teachers list what they'll be using in their color palette and say "the equivalent," but you have to know what that is. The names won't tell you. The names aren’t the same across all manufacturers. So I have to go to the Mission Gold website and look at the pigment numbers for the colors she wants on our palettes, then find the same pigments in my Daniel Smith. I had to mix one color for the class using the pigments listed and mixing until it looked like the swatch on the website but it worked for me. This is why knowing the pigments is more important than knowing the names. (Mission Gold “Viridian” is Daniel Smith Phthalo Green blue shade for instance. Daniel Smith has a different paint called Viridian with a different pigment number. More on that regarding "Pigments.")

Once you’ve decided on a paint line, then you need to decide exactly what paint you need.

You’ll need some sort of yellow, some sort of red and some sort of blue. Don't buy black or white.

Remember I told you that historically there were four primaries, not three.

Now you could go by printer’s dyes and choose yellow, magenta and cyan and you’d do just fine. Except some paint lines don’t have “cyan”. The equivalent paint would probably be a phthalo blue, a manganese blue or a cerulean, depending on the manufacturer. They all might be the same pigment.

Handprint has a very interesting article on the Four primaries. They are yellow, red, blue and green. Specifically PY153, which is nickel dioxine yellow, now discontinued although you can use Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97) or Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150), Quinacridone Rose (PV19) although you could use Quinacridone Magenta (PR122) or PERMANENT Alizarin Crimson (alizarin crimson is a fugitive color, more on that later), Phthalo Blue green shade (PB15) and Phthalo green yellow shade (PG36). Supposedly from these four colors the masters mixed all of their colors. I suspect they had plenty of earth pigments to save on mixing browns, ochres, umbers and such.

Jane Blundell has some excellent blog posts on limited palettes. What if you only had 16 colors or 12 colors or 6 colors. If you buy FOME or Whiskey Painter’s metal tins you can vary what you take from 8 to 24, depending on if you use half or whole pants.

For my yellows: I have PY153 and PO49 (both discontinued) so I’d take New Gamboge and Quin Gold. Quin Gold can be used in lieu of a Yellow Ochre or Raw Sienna.

For my reds: Quin Rose, PV19. If I can’t have that I’d probably go with Permanent Alizarin Crimson or perhaps Quin Magenta (PR122). You can also use a Rose Madder HUE (that means it's not genuine but created) but in Daniel Smith it is not a single pigment. Genuine Rose Madder is made from a plant root and is very fugitive. It will fade within a few years.  If I had space for a second red, it would be one of the scarlets. Perhaps Pyrrol Scarlet.

For the blues, my first choice would be Phthalo Blue GS (PB15). Then I would add Ultramarine Blue (PB29). If I had room for a third it would be either Cerulean Blue Chromium or Manganese Blue Hue. Why? Because of mixing. More on that later.

I would have at least Phthalo Green but probably blue shade (PG7), although you can turn yellow shade (PG36) into a blue shade. You can also turn Phthalo Blue green shade into red shade. It has to to do with color mixing.

That’s eight.

For more I would next add Burnt Sienna (Or Quin Burnt Orange) and Raw Umber. Why? Because Burnt Sienna with Ultramarine gets you Payne’s gray and Raw Umber mixed with Cerulean gets you a really nice olivey green.

That’s ten.

Two more? Buff Titanium and Neutral Tint. These would be substitutes for straight white or black, which you should avoid. There is a time and place for Chinese White or Titanium white but to begin with, try to avoid using them. Where's your white? It's the PAPER.

Buff Titanium is a beige sort of white and a bit opaque. But if you mix it with colors not only does it lighten them up but also tones them down a bit. I love it. It used to be proprietary to Daniel Smith but I noticed Cheap Joe's has it in their American Journey line and a few other manufacturers are offering a version. The color will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

Neutral tint will darken a color without changing it. It can also be effective for some shadows as it isn’t quite a black, just an almost black. It is quite versatile.

(If I didn't go with neutral tint, relying on my Payne's Gray mix instead, then I would add Daniel Smith's Moonglow, a three pigment mix that is a very convenient purple for shadows.)

That’s twelve.

Beyond that you’re looking at convenience colors like more earth tones or some greens so you don’t have to keep mixing. Maybe another yellow or red or blue to offer more mixes.

I'll post some formulas for mixing and you’ll see how you can really use what you’ve already got to create just about any color you really need. Plus, you don’t want to use every color you have for a painting. This isn’t a coloring book. Keep it down to a handful and you’ll have a much more successful painting. For practice, try doing a painting with just one color. It's called a value study and is good practice for seeing light, medium and dark in your subject. Many artists do one before starting a painting as a way to organize themselves and plan how to accomplish their painting.

If you want to learn more about deciding on a basic color palette, I highly recommend Jane Blundell's blog and website. In my opinion she is the world's expert on color, mixing and the characteristics of each manufacturer's line of artist grade watercolor.