6 - Mixing with Jane's Grey

This is the 6th and final part of this series about mixing with my Ultimate Mixing Palette. These charts show 12 of the palette colours mixed with my custom mix Jane's Grey, which is made up of Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna. It acts as a neutral tint, darkening the other colours. Alone it is a lovely granulating and liftable dark grey, useful for shadows, skies and so much more.

Many artists use this combination of Ultramarine + Burnt Sienna, or perhaps Ultramarine + Burnt Umber as a basic grey and mix it each time they use it. I find having it as a premixed dark in the palette incredibly useful. Unlike commercial Payne's Grey or most Neutral Tints, it contains no black to deaden your paintings.

Jane's Grey added to Daniel Smith watercolours Hansa Yellow Medium, Quinacridone Gold, Pyrrol Scarlet, Pyrrol Crimson, Quinacridone Rose and Ultramarine, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook A5.

Jane's Grey added to Daniel Smith watercolours Cerulean Chromium, Phthalo Blue GS, Phthalo Green BS, Goethite, Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber, Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

I make other greys while painting - Cerulean + Burnt Sienna for a dusty grey, Phthalo Blue + Burnt Sienna for a cooler grey, Pyrrol Crimson + Phthalo Green for a darker staining, non-granulating grey or black, but Jane's Grey is my go-to colour for darks as I would probably always include Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine in my paintings, so it always harmonises.

This series of 6 posts shows a fraction of the huge range of colours that can be produced with my Ultimate Mixing Palette. My book, 'The Ultimate Mixing Palette: a World of Colours' contains over 7500 different mixes, all indexed and cross-referenced. It is available as a hard or soft cover, an eBook or a PDF from Blurb.com here, along with my other comprehensive colour mixing book 'Watercolour Mixing Charts'.

Happy painting :-)