A limited palette with 6 QoR watercolours. Another with 6 Daniel Smith colours.

I tested quite a few QoR colours when they first came out in 2014 - 6 from tubes I was sent as samples and others from small dried out sample dot cards. You can see them all here.

They are all on my website in the Painted Watercolour Swatches section, which is creeping to almost 800 different painted samples now. If you have some more watercolours and would like to send me a sample to paint out, please get in touch :-)

I've been asked about adding some mixing information about these paints.

They are made with a new type of synthetic binder rather than the traditional gum arabic. It makes them feel and behave differently from traditional watercolours - a bit like painting with liquid acrylic, I felt. Golden make wonderful acrylics but I'm afraid I don't find these to be wonderful watercolours - I guess they are just not what I am used to. However, for those who are starting out they may work well. There are certainly some excellent colours but also some that are simply.... weird.

Anyway, I'll include a paintout I did using the palette of 6 that I chose. I decided to go with a balanced full gamut palette of nickel azo yellow PY150, transparent pyrrol orange PO71, quinacridone magenta PR122, ultramarine violet PV15, ultramarine blue PB29 and viridian PG18. No earth colours, and all transparent with three normally granulating pigments. Viridian and ultramarine violet are often quite weak colours so I thought these would be good to test the QoR claim of stronger colours. They are pretty powerful if you pre-wet them well before use, but not very granulating and quite difficult to lift.

QoR exploration - 6 colour full gamut palette.

I was intending having three neutralising pairs in this little palette. As you can see each pair doesn't quite make a grey but there's a lot they could do.

QoR have a much more powerful purple than this - Dioxazine purple, and a much more powerful green - Phthalo green. So this palette could be made up with stronger colours. Bismuth Vandate yellow could be used instead of Nickel Azo yellow. They also have a strong crimson which is the mixing opposite to Phthalo green, which could be used rather than the magenta. So this palette is not intended as a recommended palette, just an exploratory one.


That's the limit of my exploration of these paints. Partly, I guess, since I would actually very rarely set up a palette without burnt sienna, cerulean and a good warm yellow. Also, though it's a pretty colour, and a great mixer, I don't like painting with quinacridone magenta. While I love exploring what limited palettes can do but I don't actually choose to paint with them :-)

I don't know how well this brand would mix with traditional watercolours as I haven't tested them further. If anyone else has, please comment below.

Here is a similar full gamut palette made up with Daniel Smith paints - a powerful crimson (Pyrrol crimson), and the very strong Carbazole violet (the same pigment as Dioxazine violet) and phthalo green. There is more about this palette here. Once again it isn't a palette I would necessarily choose to paint with though even though they are so much fun to explore! My smallest palette contains lots of earthy pigments including burnt sienna and is shown here though I do have a full gamut palette in a silver locket ;-)

Daniel Smith 6-colour full gamut palette exploration 

1 - Mixing with Phthalo Green (Blue Shade)

Part 1 of a series I'll do on mixing with my Ultimate Mixing Palette colours. 

To see the mixing range this palette can create, you can see the various versions of my book here and look at the previews.

Phthalo Green comes in Blue Shade and Yellow Shade. The blue shade is made with PG7 and is also called Winsor Green BS, Helio Green, Blockx green and so on. Its full name is phthalocyanine green and is a reliable lightfast, staining, transparent and very powerful colour. The yellow shade is made with PG36 and is, not surprisingly, more of a yellow-green. I prefer the blue shade.

I don't use Phthalo Green alone, and suggest you very rarely would as it simply doesn't look realistic, but I find it invaluable in my palette for mixing. Add a cool or mid yellow for bright spring-greens, add a warm yellow for wonderful Sap greens. Add a crimson for the most amazing range of plum, aubergine, deep green and black hues. Add burnt sienna for pine greens. Add a blue for turquoise hues. While some of these colours could be created using Phthalo Blue + a yellow and then mixing with the third colour, most people struggle with 3-colour mixes so having a green in the palette speeds up the mixing process and simplifies it to just a 2-colour process.

Here is a chart showing how it mixes with 12 of my Ultimate Mixing Palette colours to create bright spring greens, lovely sap greens, deep shadow greens, turquoise hues, and earthy greens. With Burnt Sienna and Indian Red it creates yet more pine greens and deep greens. The biggest surprise is the purples it makes with Quinacridone Rose and of course the wonderful black it makes with its opposite, Pyrrol Crimson. All colours shown are Daniel Smith.

Daniel Smith Phthalo Green BS mixed with 12 of my Ultimate Mixing Palette colours.

If you don't like the staining, non-granulating nature of this pigment, another option is Viridian, made with PG18, as seen on the left in this Da Vinci sample. This isn't as powerful, but is liftable and granulating. It varies considerably from different manufacturers, some of whom add PG7 to the mix.                   Another interesting option is the gorgeous Daniel Smith primatek Jadeite Genuine which is similar in hue though in masstone it is a very deep granulating colour. I love the special effects that this pigment creates, though in my regular palette I like the predictability of Phthalo Green BS (Daniel Smith). To see these painted out with other palette colours, see my post here.