All that Grey...

Happy New Year. It's been a busy time getting our new house sorted and I still haven't unpacked everything I need in my art room - including my scanner - so please excuse the less than ideal photos. I wanted to share some ideas with you...

Back in 1999, when we lived in New Jersey, USA, my then very young son looked out the window one very grey February day and said plaintively "I wish that the world was all the colours of the rainbow."

While those of us in the Southern Hemisphere are getting our massive dose of vitamin D and watching out for the extreme UV over the Summer, for many of you this time of the year is all about grey - grey skies, grey roads, grey trees, grey buildings. There are many ways to mix greys and I thought I'd share a few.

Jane's Grey mixture

I am sure you will be familiar with my favourite grey mix - Jane's Grey. I generally prefer to create two-pigment greys since they are simple and can easily be moved between the two colours without any loss of colour harmony.

A cool dusty grey

Burnt Sienna and Cerulean Chromium is another lovely grey - I use this for dusty greys especially in the sky in the northern hemisphere if the grey is rather cool. It is granulating and liftable so, like Jane's Grey, you can splash it around and lift out the clouds.

A cool staining grey

Pyrrol Scarlet and Phthalo blue GS will also make an interesting range of greys and near-blacks, including one I call 'Jane's Black R/B', but these will be non-granulating and staining. Where the above mixes can move between blues and browns, this will move between deep indigos and Indian red hues. It will also mix darker greys than the above. 

A variation of this is Transparent Pyrrol Orange mixed with Phthalo Blue RS - this pair makes a gorgeous deep black and a range of browns and burnt oranges that I call Jane's Black B/O and use for bird or stone studies where the common colours are browns/oranges and blues. (Note: DS Transparent Pyrrol Orange has changed from a red-orange to a mid orange so this is no longer a neutralising pair.)

A neutral staining grey is created when you 
dilute Jane's Black

Another favourite two-colour mix is Phthalo Green BS and Pyrrol Crimson - at full strength this makes Jane's Black (R/G) - a wonderful deep staining black. It can be watered down to a very soft range of greys. It can lean towards the deep maroons or deep greens so can be useful for foliage and landscape greys and blacks.

For a greater range of greys, try mixing three primaries together.

Granulating greys.

A lovely general purpose primary triad consists of ultramarine, Quinacridone Gold or another warm yellow (New Gamboge/Hansa Yellow Deep etc) and Pyrrol Crimson. This is a very useful triad in Australia as it mixes slightly dull greens, oranges and purples that suit our landscape. This Aussie Triad will also mix a rich black that can be watered down to a lovely granulating grey. As there are three pigments in the grey, it can also be moved to a more purplish grey, a more green-grey, a more brown-grey or of course more blue, more yellow or more red. That adds complexity in mixing but is fun to explore.

A versatile range of greys.

If you start with a cool triad - phthalo blue GS, Hansa yellow light (or medium as a pirmary yellow) and Quinacridone Rose - you can also mix a gorgeous rich and staining black. Watered down, this will make a range of soft greys that can be adjusted warmer or cooler as you prefer.

Warm greys

A rather classical triad of a warm red, a yellow and ultramarine will also make a rich black, and watered down the greys will be granulating. They will tend to be warmer greys too.

Brown-greys

Phthalo blue, Quinacridone gold and pyrrol scarlet make another deep black but the greys tend to be difficult to neutralise if you add the yellow - alone the scarlet and blue make a rich neutral black as seen above.

My favourite granulating earth greys

One of my favourites is the grey made with Cerulean Chromium, an earth yellow such as Yellow Ochre and Indian Red. This will be a granulating grey and rather lovely to explore for snow.

Versatile granulating greys

Ultramarine,  Hansa Yellow medium and Quinacridone Rose is one of the most versatile primary triads - you can make pretty much any colour with this set. Mixed together they make a lovely rich black and a range of beautiful greys.














To make blacks and greys with any primary triad, I suggest making a mid orange first, then gradually add the blue. You could equally make a green and add the red or make a purple and add the yellow, but making the orange and adding the blue seems to be the most reliable method. And of course use very strong pigments with very little water to get a rich black.

You can read more about three-pigment greys on Liz Steel's blog - she uses three colours to make her premixed greys, including her new soft grey, which is a little like the earth grey above.

Enjoy your mixed greys and blacks :-)

Custom watercolour mixes - a question of Greys

I have been adding a number of greys to the Painted Watercolour Swatches section of my website, which you can see here. I noticed how much the colour of 'Payne's Grey' varies between the different brands, ranging from a warmer blue-grey to a cooler blue-grey to a more neutral grey. Pretty much all have black in the mix, which makes it a convenience colour that doesn't interest me as black pigments seem to dull a painting badly.

It got me wondering, though, who Payne was. A little Googling and Wikipedia had the answer - William Payne was an English watercolourist, and the colour was made for him. The term has been used in English since 1835. Interestingly though, the original version did not contain black. It contained iron blue (known as Prussian Blue, PB27), Yellow Ochre (PY43) and Crimson Lake, which as far as I can find is a fugitive carmine pigment PR23. I don't have any PR23 to look at but I thought I'd mix some Yellow Ochre, Prussian blue and a Permanent Alizarin together and see what I could get. (All watercolours Daniel Smith unless otherwise noted.)

Traditional Payne's Grey mix of pigments - yellow ochre, Prussian blue and a crimson.

It makes some interesting greys. With more Prussian blue it turns into a cool dark blue-grey, similar to the commercial black and blue mixes available. The interesting thing is the way the yellow ochre and crimson pop up in blooms. I made these mixes using tube paint mixed in a pan to get it really strong, to have plenty to play with. Yellow ochre, Prussian Blue and Permanent Crimson actually make a rather interesting old-fashioned looking triad to paint with.

Since I don't use Prussian blue in my palette, I thought I'd experiment with some other colours. I switched to Ultramarine PB29 and PV19 Alizarin Crimson Quinacridone - a single pigment crimson from Da Vinci - and tested that trio in a strong wash. Two granulating colours made it too dull. 

     

Next I tried the same yellow ochre and crimson with Phthalo Blue GS - another cool transparent blue, like Prussian blue. I think this may be fairly authentic - I can see this being a useful mixed grey.                                  

I switched to Indanthrone Blue to try making a warmer grey. I like this - rather like my Jane's Grey - so not necessary to create.  

Exploring Payne's Grey variations

Then I tried both transparent blues with Quinacridone Gold instead of Yellow Ochre. This makes almost a black, that could be warmer or cooler depending on the amount of blue added, and which one is used. Interesting to explore, perhaps also with Quinacridone Rose, but not mixtures I feel I need. Though why do all of the commercial mixes contain blacks instead of these wonderful colours?

Next I come to Davy's Grey - another grey named after an Englishman, Henry Davy. It was a mix of powdered slate, iron oxide and carbon black. The commercial versions are quite different, though interestingly QoR make an Ardoise grey using PBk19 which was in the original watercolour for Davy. Winsor & Newton use a white, a green and a black pigment today. It's not a colour I have ever seen a use for.

So then I thought about Neutral Tint - another grey that has been around since the 18th century. It was designed to be used in mixing to darken colours without changing their hue. Today most also contain a black pigment, with a couple of exceptions such as Neutral Tint by M.Graham, which is PG7 + PV19, Schmincke Neutral Grey, which is PR255 + PB60 + P062,  and Old Holland has a 4 pigment mix of PB15:2 + PV19 +PR259 + PBr7!

Bruce MacEvoy of Handprint fame mentions his 'synthetic black' recipe with uses PB60+PB25+PG7 in roughly the ratio 8:6:1. I have Indanthrone Blue and Phthalo Green in my palette, but the only available PBr25 I could find are DS Permanent Brown and W&N limited edition Indian Red Deep - both transparent reddish brown watercolours. I mixed them as suggested and created a rich and rather lovely RGB black. [Update - Mission Gold also have a PBr25 Red Brown, though I haven't tried it.]

However you can easily make a rich transparent black with just Phthalo Green and Pyrrol Crimson, which I premix to make 'Jane's Black (R/G)'. This is a fantastic mixed black that can easily be adjusted to a deep green or a deep maroon when painting and is perfect for floral subjects - especially red flowers.

Mixing blacks and greys - MacEvoy's Synthetic Black, Jane's Black R/G, Jane's Black B/O,
Jane's Black R/B and Jane's Grey.

You can also mix Phthalo Blue RS with Transparent Pyrrol Orange to make my other favourite custom black 'Jane's Black (B/O)'. (2019 Update - Transparent Pyrrol Orange has changed to more of a mid-orange rather than the red-orange I originally used for this mixed black.)

Phthalo Blue Green Shade will make another black with Pyrrol Scarlet, Jane's Black R/B. It could be useful in landscapes where prussian blue and indigo blue hues are also needed.

And then of course there is Jane's Grey that I premix that works as a neutral tint, without the addition of a black pigment. The other advantage of this pair is that the grey is liftable. Many mixed greys are staining. 2018 update - available in the Daniel Smith Ultimate Mixing Set in a half pan. 2019 update - now available in a tube as a signature colour from Daniel Smith (affiliate link to Jacksonsart.com)

There are two single pigment darks that interest me - DS Lunar Black, the fantastic granulation creates wonderful effects, and DS Graphite Grey. This is like painting with liquid pencil - it even has a slight sheen. Really interesting to use.

It is easy to mix a number of greys and blacks with regular palette colours but mixing them from the tube paints and allowing them to dry in the palette does speed up the painting process and enable you to get good darks fast. I'd still rather mix them myself than buy the commercial versions currently available. What about you?

Update - here are some extra swatches of the colours shown above and discussed in comments below. Notice that DS Burnt Sienna PBr7 is slightly more orange than the DS permanent Brown PBr25 or W&N Indian Red Deep PBr25. W&N Burnt Sienna PR101 is much more of a burnt orange hue. Brown Madder W&N or DS Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet are made with PR206 - another transparent earth red option. There is also the option of PR179 Perylene Maroon is another interesting transparent neutralised red but it varies hugely by manufacturer. I have shown the more burnt scarlet version by W&N. In Daniel Smith is is far more of a maroon and in Daler Rowney it is a deep crimson.

Many more interesting red and brown watercolour samples can be found on my website in the Painted Watercolour Swatches section. They are arrange by colour first, then by pigment.

A Question of Hues - Jane's Gold

I recently found an old pan of Winsor and Newton genuine Quinacridone Gold watercolour. PO49. (I had already stocked up on old supplies of the W&N acrylic version :-) Needless to say I snatched it up as I was curious to see how their version compared with the Daniel Smith colour I know and love. Daniel Smith bought up the last supplies of this pigment many years ago and are the only ones still making the genuine version. On the screen they look very alike, though in real life the DS is a little warmer. It is interesting to note that a number of the DS colours that used to have PO49 are now using PO48 or other pigments.

What I have always tried to understand is why Winsor & Newton make such a complex and ugly hue of this colour. They use PY150 - a lovely slightly acid transparent yellow that is an excellent base colour, and is available in W&N as Transparent Yellow or M.Graham and Daniel Smith as Nickel Azo Yellow; PR206 a burnt red, available in W&N as Brown Mader, Daniel Smith as Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet and Daler Rowney as Transparent Red Brown; and PV19 - a rose to violet pigment. W&N Quin Gold (hue) ends up being a very dirty colour, with too much violet-red though once again that is difficult to see on the screen. If they simply mixed the PY150 with their own Burnt Sienna PR101 they would have a cleaner colour that exactly matches genuine Quinacridone Gold. Other companies make the hue with PY150 + PO48 or other variations. Once again, the simplest solution is the best? Anyway, my quin gold hue - Jane's Gold - is PY150 (DS Nickel Azo Yellow) + PR101 (W&N Burnt Sienna) :-)

So how much of each? Making Jane's Gold :-)

 I have used with a half pan and added a decent blob of Nickel Azo Yellow PY150, but left room to mix. Then a much smaller blob of W&N Burnt Sienna PR101. It really depends on the brands you are using how much you need. I mixed these thoroughly with a very fine quill (or use a metal skewer of needle) and came up with a colour that is still too yellow.

 Here is the first mix - not enough PR101

So I added another small blob using the tip of a palette knife - you can see the small blob in the corner of the palette

 The second mix is warmer, but not deep enough and still too much yellow in a wash.

So I added the third small blob amount again, stirred it well, and came out with a very close match, pictured on the left.

Here is my mix compared with the actual PO49 paint. I estimate it is 5 parts PY150:1 part PR101, but the different brands will be different thicknesses so there is no magic formula.

Here is my testing page. You can see Quin gold mixed with Ultramarine on the top left, Jane's gold with Ultramarine below it. It could still have a little more PR101 but is very close. The thing about making your own custom mixes is you can decide exactly what warmth to take it to.

Other good Quin gold hue mixes are PY150 + PO48, PY129 + PBr7 and even PY97 as a base yellow colour.

And here are the pigments in their pure form.

Happy custom mixing :-)

To see my Jane's Grey custom mix, click here
For Jane's Black and other custom mixes click here
For more custom mixes (Jane's golden Earth, Jane's Sienna and Jane's Earth Rose) click here.

Custom made watercolour mixes - 'Jane's Grey'.

If you have a favourite mix that you use a lot, it's very easy to premix it from tubes so it is available in your palette whenever you need it. You may want to do this with a favourite green mix or a purple. It certainly cuts down on the number of tubes of paint you need to manage and the time spent mixing colours on the run. It's especially useful if it is a dark colour.

Recipe for Jane's Grey

For a small amount, just squeeze your favourite mix of colours directly in your palette, or into a half or whole pan, in the proportions of tube paint you need, and mix them thoroughly. Test the mix on paper, making a strong and a weak wash to make sure it is what you like and allow to dry naturally. Make sure you label it. :-) Also make sure you don't put too much paint in initially, as you may need space to add more of one colour or the other.




For larger quantities I make up a tube of colour. I do this all the time with my 'Jane's Grey' mix. I squeeze out the required proportions of my two paint colours using a tube wringer to get out all the paint. It takes 4x15ml tubes! I squeeze it into an egg cup and then stir it very thoroughly. It is important to make it consistent all the way to the bottom. I then test the colour full strength and in a wash and adjust and remix if necessary. Then I pour it into the empty tube.

'Jane's Grey' all mixed up to a just cool grey.

Paint poured into the tube.

I use the wringer to seal the bottom of the tube, squeezing carefully to try to remove any air but not cause the paint to squeeze out the bottom. I crimp the tube and fold the bottom up and it's nice and safely sealed.

If there is paint left over in the egg cup, which there is likely to be, I add a few drops of distilled water, mix again and pour the more liquid version into my palettes to top up my colours, and make a few half or full pans ready for use. There is basically nothing wasted, and I save a lot of time while painting having my colour available as a nice rich slightly cool dark, without the black you get with many commercial greys.

I don't use any other additives with the Daniel Smith paints, but if you find your tube colours dry out too much you can add a drop or two of Glycerine or pure honey to keep the paint from cracking. M.Graham paints are famous for staying soft due to the honey added. Their range includes Neutral Tint which is made with Phthalo Green and Quinacridone Violet, so it doesn't contain black, but that is the only commercial version that I am aware of. 2014 update - QoR watercolours by Golden also have a Neutral Tint without black. It is made from the almost CYM colours Phthalo Blue, Quinacridone Magenta and Transparent Yellow Oxide.

You can mix a beautiful rich deep black with Phthalo Green (BS) and a deep crimson such as Pyrrol Crimson, Anthraquinoid Red or Permanent Alizarin too. That's another of my favourite darks to premix myself (Jane's Black 2!) Have a look at this mix towards the top here, labelled Phthalo Green and Anthraquinoid Red. Jane's Black 1 is also in one of the charts - Phthalo Blue RS + Transparent Pyrrol Orange.

I find that Neutral Tint and Payne's Grey commercial mixes containing black tend to dull the painting so I don't choose to use them, though many do and love the way they can be used to deepen other colours. Here is the Daniel Smith version of Neutral Tint. It's a lovely hue. Very like mine :-) but mine is made without black.

Maybe one day Daniel Smith will make my Jane's grey and save me the trouble!

Paint tube crimped shut with as little air in it as possible.

My labelled 60ml tube of Jane's Grey. It's a wonderful mix
that my students and I use all the time.

Update February 2019

Well I got my wish! Delighted to see this really useful colour now readily available :-)