TIP 8 Don’t use too many colours!
There are at least 96 colours in Winsor and Newton’s Artists’ watercolour range. I use about a dozen regularly which is enough for me. Spend some time finding out which ones you really like and experiment.
The arrangement of different paints you can see on my drawing board is fairly typical for me when working in the studio. I often squeeze colour from large tubes (which are better value than the smaller ones) into saucers which I then use for mixing colours. I find the large ceramic pans are also handy but then I also dip in to my two metal painting boxes which I use mainly on location. The smaller of the two is great for carrying about as it’s small, you can mix colours in the inside part of the lid and it has it’s own water reservoir.
These are the colours I tend to use the most and which I carry on location: Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Scarlet Lake, Rose Madder, Ultramarine Violet, French Ultramarine, Manganese Blue Hue, Cobalt Turquoise Light, Windsor Green, Burnt Umber, Vandyke Brown, Payne’s Grey, Lamp Black and Chinese White.
Alizarin Crimson, Cerulean Blue, Winsor Yellow and Cadmium Orange are also colours which I might also use when working in the studio. Remember, you can mix colours, either in your mixing palettes or through laying one wash of colour on top of another when it’s dry. I hope this is of some help. Have fun experimenting folks.
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