As a beginner watercolorist one year ago, I greatly appreciated watercolor artist Steve Mitchell on his YouTube channel, The Mind of Watercolor, explaining that watercolors are not as transparent as most people assume. That piece of info really intrigued me, and I took many of Steve's tutorials on choosing watercolors, papers, brushes, soaking up theory on what I had assumed was just splashing pigment on paper to create a picture. What a great teacher!
I have to say that probably his YouTube clip I most appreciated was his "My Favorite 8 Colors for Watercolor". In it he explained his logic for his favorite eight color preferences. Basically, he avoided opaque colors, which tend to bog down and muddy colors when mixed with other colors, and his preferential eight were colors chosen because of their transparency and luminosity. He stressed that the popular yellow ochre is commonly an opaque "watercolor" (oh really?!), and then Steve proceeded to offer a list of his color palette alternatives in his "How to Avoid Muddy Colors in Watercolor" clip:
I have to say that probably his YouTube clip I most appreciated was his "My Favorite 8 Colors for Watercolor". In it he explained his logic for his favorite eight color preferences. Basically, he avoided opaque colors, which tend to bog down and muddy colors when mixed with other colors, and his preferential eight were colors chosen because of their transparency and luminosity. He stressed that the popular yellow ochre is commonly an opaque "watercolor" (oh really?!), and then Steve proceeded to offer a list of his color palette alternatives in his "How to Avoid Muddy Colors in Watercolor" clip:
OPAQUE WATERCOLORS (a few of many)
cadmium reds (muddy complements and dull less vibrant colors)Venetian red (a gorgeous color but weighs down color mixes)yellow ochre (particularly known for its opacity)Naples yellow (absolutely opaque in a lot of brands)cerulean blue (muddies complements and browns)raw umber (most browns have some opacity, but raw umber particularly so)black (very opaque in most brands, but why use it when color mixes can achieve the same effect?)
TRANSPARENT WATERCOLORS, Steve Mitchell's M. Graham preferences
Payne's gray (for cooling colors) (my research shows most Payne's gray is opaque)
sepia (for warming colors)
azo green
Indian yellow
red iron oxide
quinacridon red (pyrrol reds are also very transparent)
ultramarine blue
Prussian blue
So my first watercolors were M. Graham and nearly the same as the ones Steve had chosen for himself. He's a landscape artist while I like painting animals within landscapes, so different colors are therefore appealing to me.
However, while I loved the luminosity and the great flow of the M. Graham, they don't travel well because of their high gooey honey base. Now I've branched out into mostly Daniel Smith, yeah, expensive, but I like their wide selection of transparent colors, and I'm experimenting a bit with a few of their Primatek earth colors. Fun indeed!
I've also chosen a few Winsor and Newton, as sometimes a W&N is more transparent than a semi-transparent DS. But, Steve, thanks for giving me a really good foundation in theory and the first steps in application knowledge. I can say that your passion has become my passion!
