An Urban Sketching watercolour palette with Daniel Smith watercolours

I am often asked what colours to buy to start painting with watercolour. I created an 'ultimate mixing set' to address this question - a palette of 15 colours that will be suitable for mixing any colour and painting just about anything, and a book that shows how to mix them.

They are a great set for anyone, but this time I wanted to look more specifically at those who are urban sketching, and who may be new to watercolour. They are painting a largely man-made urban world and looking for a compact and portable palette. I also wanted to focus on more forgiving colours than the phthalos which are powerful and staining, so can be a little scary for beginners, though they are wonderful :-)

Here is a suggested 12 colour 'starter' urban sketching palette using Daniel Smith watercolours. I am focusing on the colours that are available as 5ml tubes and/or watercolour sticks so that the initial investment is not too high - then it is easier to get started with wonderful artist quality watercolours rather than student ranges. I'll look at other brands in separate posts.

This set of 12 contains a fairly classic bright split primary palette with an emphasis on transparent or semi-transparent colours that are non-staining so it is very forgiving - you can lift off 'mistakes' if you need to!

There is a cool and a warm yellow, then a warm and a cool red, then a warm and a cool blue. All are transparent or semi-transparent so your carefully drawn pen or pencil lines won't be covered when you paint - an important consideration for sketching.

This particular sap green is a very useful and realistic convenient green straight from the palette. It can be further neutralised with the addition of either of the reds or burnt sienna for more olive greens. Or it can be warmed further with either of the yellows, or cooled down with the blues. Other greens can be mixed with the blues and yellows.

Then there are the earth colours, which help to speed up your painting and create the colours you need for building materials and even skin tones - the yellow earth - yellow ochre; an orange earth - burnt sienna; and a deep cool earth - raw umber.

Suggested 12-colour starter set of Daniel Smith watercolours

Buff Titanium is an unbleached white pigment. It is perfect for creating the look of marble (with Jane's Grey) or sandstone (with yellow ochre and burnt sienna) and also for skin tones or pastel hues. It is a colour and texture exclusive to Daniel Smith and one of my favourite urban sketching pigments.

These colours can be bought either as sticks, 5ml tubes or 15ml tubes. Some, though not all, are available in all forms. Making half pans from the Daniel Smith watercolour sticks is very efficient and cost effective, as you can just cut 1/6 (or 1/5 if you want it really full) off the stick and press it into the half pan - no need to let it dry overnight like tube colours. They re-wet just like regular pan watercolours when you are painting. Then you still have the rest of the stick to draw with if you wish, or make some spare pans for extended travel. I would put a drop or two of distilled water in the bottom of the pan to soften the paint if you are in a very dry environment so the stick wedges into the pan perfectly.

* The watercolour sticks are all one price, regardless of the series number. Consequently they are a very affordable way to purchase series 2 or higher watercolours to make up into palettes. The pigment load is 1.6 times the tube colours and they contain no chalk or fillers.

The final colour has to be made with tube colours - it is a mix of the burnt sienna and ultramarine to make the very convenient 'Jane's Grey'. Instructions on mixing this here.

*The Daniel Smith Essentials set of 6 x 5ml tubes could certainly be used in this palette, then add Cerulean Chromium along with the other colours so you have a non-staining cool blue for creating skies anywhere in the world with or without mixing with ultramarine. New gamboge and hansa yellow deep are almost exactly the same bright warm yellow colour.

The Schmincke 12-colour metal sketching palette
set up with 12 half pans of Daniel Smith watercolours.

This is the Schmincke palette, available empty, designed to hold 12 colours, but you can easily add another 2 into the metal holding plate. A very similar version is also available for around US$15 or AU$25 (Art Basics from Art Scene in Australia.)















This gives you the option of adding 2 more of your own chosen colours at some time - another blue, such as phthalo blue; a deep green such as perylene green, a convenience orange such as quinacridone sienna; an earth red such as Indian red (which is excellent for brickwork and certainly one I'd add), a convenience purple such as Imperial purple - whatever you wish. I also love the mixing pair phthalo green and pyrrol crimson or Undersea green for Australian foliage. The point is, it's up to you.

Possible additional colours to personalise a 14 or more colour palette

A metal 12-pan palette st up with 14 half pans

Here I have set it up with space for perylene green (or phthalo green, or undersea green) and Indian red (or burnt umber). The half pans can be moved around easily, or stuck more firmly into place with blu-tac or you can stick magnetic strips to the bottom of each pan. 

If your collection grows, as they often do, the whole internal metal tray can be removed so either 18 half pans and a travel brush, or 24 half pans, or a mix of whole and half pans can be added to create a personalised palette. You can see a lot of other palettes on my website here.

Happy sketching!

Daniel Smith Essentials - a great set to get you started with Artist Quality watercolour

Daniel Smith Essentials Set

I think it is terrific that Daniel Smith have put together a couple of sets of 5ml tubes of colours. These are available in many countries, even where the full range of 88 5ml tubes may not be available.

The 'Essentials' set contains six tubes, a warm and a cool red, yellow and blue. It's a great mixing set, or starter set for those getting into artist quality watercolours.

It contains Hansa Yellow Light as the cool yellow - a great choice as it is transparent which suits most people better than the more opaque cadmium yellows. New Gamboge is the warm yellow - a lovely hue. It will mix wonderful oranges with Pyrrol Scarlet, the warm red. It will also mix lovely earthy greens with French Ultramarine, the warm blue. The cool blue, Phthalo Blue Green Shade, will mix bright greens with Hansa Yellow light or slightly more neutral and useful sap greens with New Gamboge. The cool red is the very pure and bright Quinacridone Rose, which will make the most beautiful purples with either of the blues. Start mixing three colours together and you can create all sorts of yellow ochre, raw sienna, Indian red, light red, burnt sienna and grey hues if you know what you are doing. Brenda Swenson has a wonderful demonstration using these colours on her blog here.

Many people who are new to watercolour struggle a little more with three-colour mixes and it speeds up your painting if you have some neutrals already in your palette so the next question might be - what to add to these essentials?

The answer depends on what you are painting.

Daniel Smith Primatek Set

It might also depend on whether you have also purchased the Daniel Smith Primatek set ;-)
This is another Daniel Smith set, containing six of their Primatek colours - they are all created from ground up minerals or stones. Rhodonite Genuine, Jadeite Genuine, Amethyst Genuine, Mayan Blue Genuine, Hematite Genuine and Piemontite Genuine.






If you have this set, you may choose to use the green and the purple in your palette as convenient secondaries, the blue as an additional cool blue, the Hematite as a dark grey/black and the Piemontite as an earth red. I love this for painting rusty surfaces too. These will all add granulating texture to your paintings. You can see a wonderful demonstration, again by Brenda Swanson, using both of these sets here. She is a fabulous painter :-)

If you don't have the Primatek set, you might like to add some other convenient colours, perhaps a 'landscape' or 'urban sketching' extender set. Here are some suggestions.

• An earth yellow is useful - shown is the semi opaque Yellow Ochre but I also love the granulating Goethite (not available in 5ml tubes) or the slightly more orange and transparent Raw Sienna. Mont Amiata Natural Sienna is a transparent yellow ochre colour, though also not available in 5ml tubes. An earth yellow is useful for mixing olive greens and for use in landscapes. 
• I find Burnt Sienna invaluable and use it with ultramarine to make a huge range of colours, or alone and watered down to make a skin tone. 
• If you are doing landscapes or urban sketching you might like to add a couple of wonderful convenient greens such as Sap Green and Undersea Green, pictured. 
• I like Cerulean Chromium as a sky blue, often mixed with Ultramarine. It is not as staining as Phthalo blue so is an excellent third blue option. 
• Buff Titanium is another very useful paint for Urban sketching and landscapes, though it is also useful in portraits.

Daniel Smith earth and landscape watercolours - Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Sap Green, Undresea Green, Cerulean Chromium, Buff Titanium along with Moonglow and Jane's Grey (custom mix).

• If you choose to add a neutralised orange (burnt sienna) and one or two of the neutralised greens (such as Undersea Green), you might also like to add a neutralised purple. The one shown is a three-pigment mix called Moonglow and it is another lovely granulating colour. It is also a useful shadow colour. Bright secondaries are easy to mix with the Essentials set; more neutral oranges, purples and greens may take three pigments to create. 
• You may wish to add a dark - this is my mixture of Burnt Sienna + Ultramarine, but you may choose to add a Payne's Grey or Neutral Tint or make a mix of your own as a convenient dark.
• Indian Red - an earth red not shown above - is another useful urban sketching colour but it is very opaque and powerful and can be difficult for beginners to use. Watered right down it is a lovely soft earthy pink - suitable for lips and cheeks in portraits. You can mix the hue with Pyrrol Scarlet and Phthalo Blue GS.

The essentials set is also a good start if you wish to get my Ultimate Mixing Palette set in 5ml tubes. Use the Hansa Yellow Light instead of Hansa Yellow Medium, use New Gamboge instead of Quinacridone Gold, then add 5ml tubes of Buff Titanium, Yellow Ochre (instead of Goethite), Burnt Sienna, Indian Red, Raw Umber, Cerulean Chromium, Permanent Alizarin Crimson (instead of Pyrrol Crimson), Phthalo Green BS and make a grey from Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine.

Happy painting :-)