If I could only buy three or four colours I would choose these. (Patreon)

Hi everyone,

I hope you are having a fabulous week. I'm busy checking the sound and transitions on the Koala tutorial today. My younger son is home from Sydney for a few days with his girlfriend. He had to work over Christmas so we didn't see him then. It's good to catch up with them. He's just left to go to a wedding so the house is quiet again for a little while 🤫.

I have talked before about the colours that I use most often. The links to those posts are at the bottom of this post.

I don’t mix a lot of colours on my palette. Instead I tend to put pure pigments on the paper and I let the water on the paper merge the pigment and create the interesting effects that watercolour is renowned for. 

Over the years I’ve bought a lot of different colours but if I was just starting out and I could only afford to buy three colours. I would choose (artist quality paints only):

French Ultramarine

Permanent Rose

Winsor Lemon

The colours depicted below in the photographs are all Winsor & Newton artist quality paint range.

French Ultramarine is a warm blue. It is transparent, granulating and permanent.

Permanent Rose is a cool pink/red. It is transparent, staining and permanent.

Winsor Lemon is a cool yellow. It is semi-transparent, staining and permanent.

These three colours will mix up a beautiful range of secondary colours. 

If you mix all three of them together you will make beautiful browns, greys and blacks.

If I could add a fourth colour to my palette I would buy Burnt Sienna.

Burnt Sienna is transparent and permanent. 

If you want a colour that is more of a vibrant orange red than Permanent Rose, one I like to use is Scarlet Lake (Winsor & Newton). It's a semi transparent staining colour.

I have a list of colours I use most often here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/29053910

Here is another list of the Winsor & Newton colours I put in my new palette: https://www.patreon.com/posts/31202241

If you have three or four favourite colours that you couldn’t live without let us all know what they are in the comments below.