10 - Light, Grey and Black Watercolour SwatchesThere are literally hundreds of artist quality watercolours available from many brands. I have tested many of them and created swatches as seen on the right. The square box is painted into a damp wash at the top to show the colour mixed in water, with more pigment added towards the bottom. The rectangle is painted in a juicy wash to show the mass-tone. The small squares at the bottom of the swatch have the pigment number and characteristics - staining, lightfast rating, granulation and transparency.
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The size of my swatches
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Lights, Greys and Blacks
Traditionally white is not used as a mixing colour in transparent watercolour paintings, as water is used to lighten a colour and the paper provides the 'white'. Many artists do add a touch of white watercolour or gouache to a painting to add a highlight or recover a lost white so the white shown here has a strip of permanent marker behind it so its opacity can be determined. I use a lot of an unusual granulating light pigment, Buff Titanium, which I have included here.
Black as also generally avoided as it can have a deadening effect on the other colours, though a convenient dark is very useful. Here are a few different forms of Payne's grey and Neutral Tint. Notice that most of them contain black, except the M.Graham Neutral Tint which is wonderfully dark but made PG7 and PV19. My preference is to make my own darks, my favourite being Jane's Grey, a mix of Ultramarine PB29 and Burnt Sienna PBr7 that I make using Daniel Smith paints. I have included some blacks here, the most amazing being the incredibly granulating Lunar Black.
Black as also generally avoided as it can have a deadening effect on the other colours, though a convenient dark is very useful. Here are a few different forms of Payne's grey and Neutral Tint. Notice that most of them contain black, except the M.Graham Neutral Tint which is wonderfully dark but made PG7 and PV19. My preference is to make my own darks, my favourite being Jane's Grey, a mix of Ultramarine PB29 and Burnt Sienna PBr7 that I make using Daniel Smith paints. I have included some blacks here, the most amazing being the incredibly granulating Lunar Black.
Whites (to be completed)
Greys - single and mixed pigment
There are many ways to mix a grey, my favourite being Ultramarine + Burnt Sienna (see the Jane's Grey swatch below, or click the link to find out how to make it), but many mixing opposites will create interesting grey hues. I've written more about mixed greys and blacks on my blog - All that Grey and Custom watercolour mixes - a question of greys.
Payne's Grey is a very common premixed colour, usually made with a black and a blue pigment, though originally, according to Wikipedia it was made with Yellow Ochre, Prussian Blue and Crimson Lake, which would be a much more interesting mix to paint with. It was named after William Payne and first appeared in English in 1835.
Neutral Tint was also created in the 18th century, and was originally made with Light Red (red iron oxide), indigo or iron blue and gamboge or yellow ochre. (Bruce MacEvoy) It is a grey designed to deepen other colours without changing them i.e. if you add neutral tint to a yellow will go deeper yellow rather than turning green. These days it is also made using a black pigment my most manufacturers, though M.Graham uses PG7 + PV19.
Davy's Grey by Winsor & Newton was named after Henry Davy and was originally made from Powdered slate (PBk19), iron oxide and carbon black. There are also some interesting single pigment greys such as Graphite by Daniel Smith, which is very opaque with a slight sheen. I like using this with pencil drawings.
Payne's Grey is a very common premixed colour, usually made with a black and a blue pigment, though originally, according to Wikipedia it was made with Yellow Ochre, Prussian Blue and Crimson Lake, which would be a much more interesting mix to paint with. It was named after William Payne and first appeared in English in 1835.
Neutral Tint was also created in the 18th century, and was originally made with Light Red (red iron oxide), indigo or iron blue and gamboge or yellow ochre. (Bruce MacEvoy) It is a grey designed to deepen other colours without changing them i.e. if you add neutral tint to a yellow will go deeper yellow rather than turning green. These days it is also made using a black pigment my most manufacturers, though M.Graham uses PG7 + PV19.
Davy's Grey by Winsor & Newton was named after Henry Davy and was originally made from Powdered slate (PBk19), iron oxide and carbon black. There are also some interesting single pigment greys such as Graphite by Daniel Smith, which is very opaque with a slight sheen. I like using this with pencil drawings.
Blacks
Rich blacks can be mixed using two or three-pigment mixes, for example Phthalo Green + Pyrrol Crimson (which makes Jane's Black) or using a red + yellow + blue or a red + green + blue combination. Another to try is Bruce MacEvoy's 'synthetic black' made from indanthrone blue (PB60), benzimida brown (PBr25) and phthalocyanine green (PG7), roughly in the proportions 8:6:1.
While I don't choose to use a commercially made grey or a single pigment black in my painting generally, I love the granulation of Lunar Black (Daniel Smith) for special effects.
While I don't choose to use a commercially made grey or a single pigment black in my painting generally, I love the granulation of Lunar Black (Daniel Smith) for special effects.
These swatches are painted and added as a guide. The intention is show the characteristics of each colour when painted. The colour reproduction is not perfect but hopefully will still be helpful used in conjunction with the manufacturer's website. Thank you to those of you, from Canada, Sweden, Australia and the USA, who have helped me with this section by sharing your favourite colours. If you notice errors please let me know so I can correct them. If you have artist quality watercolour that are not shown here and want to help me build up this resource, also please let me know :-)