Cotman and Van Gogh: shades of grey

I have noticed that the half-pans in my favourite Cotman Sketchers’ Pocket Box are starting to show obvious signs of use. In particular, the Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna paints. This is not a surprise, as thanks to the leaflet packed with my Pocket Box that included a brief watercolour tutorial, I soon learnt that when Ultramarine and and Burnt Sienna are mixed together in appropriate proportions, a lovely grey results. And by using more or less Ultramarine in the mix, a cooler or warmer grey can be obtained. I have found this mixture to be indispensable when tackling landscapes. (Others think so too: the artist Jane Blundell mixes up her own tube colour which she calls Jane’s Grey, and it is now produced by Daniel Smith.)

I suspect that I come across as something of a Winsor and Newton Cotman watercolour fan, but I do like to evaluate other paint ranges from time to time to see whether these might convince me to abandon my Cotman paints! Given that I use up more Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna paint, it makes sense to try this pair of colours first of all, as I have certain expectations about how they should behave when mixed together. Also, the pigments used in Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna tend to be less expensive than others, so these colours usually feature in all watercolour ranges.

In the last couple of years, the Royal Talens Van Gogh line of paints had appeared on my radar, and I had bought a number of 10 ml tubes to see whether these might be used in my usual palette. In particular, I was interested in some of the colours which were only available in other more expensive artists’ ranges. But how did the Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna combination perform?

To find out, I took a small piece of practice paper and drew around an empty half pan with a pencil to make two rows of rectangular swatch spaces. Using a ruler, I drew lines between some of the swatches, with arrow heads to indicate where the pigment had come from. Then I had fun mixing up paint and colouring in the swatches! (See the image on the right.)

I did the Cotman colours first when the daylight was starting to fail, so the intensity is a bit inconsistent. Having read comments about the weakness of the Ultramarine, I was a bit surprised with my swatch: I put three drops of water in the half pan and left it for a few minutes, and then picked up the paint on a No. 6 round brush and transferred it to a mixing palette, where I added another drop of water from a pipette. Then I painted the swatch. Wow!

The Van Gogh swatches were done the next day when the light was better, and I took more care to make them more even. The paints mixed as expected with no surprises. Even when I mixed Cotman Ultramarine with Van Gogh Burnt Sienna, the outcome was exactly as I hoped for.

So a successful result from both ranges: several lovely shades of grey!

What’s in my palette?

 Some months ago, I mentioned my use of a watercolour secondary palette of six paints in preference to the apparent dogma of a split primary palette. But my well-used Cotman Sketchers’ Pocket Box has 12 compartments. So what do I have in the other six compartments? (I know this is a popular discussion subject on Internet forums such as Wet Canvas.)

As supplied and after shuffling paints around to make the top/far row the secondary palette, the Pocket Box would then contain Sap Green, Lemon Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and Chinese White. Of these, I keep all but the Lemon Yellow and Chinese White.

Even though it seems a little weak, the Sap Green is a good starting point for mixing other foliage greens in landscapes. I like all the earth colours and use them frequently, even though other people have criticised the pigment load of the Burnt Sienna. They suit my way of working.

My current replacement for Lemon Yellow is PY129, called Green Gold by Winsor and Newton, and available by different names in other ranges. (Van Gogh have it as Azomethine Yellow.) It is a darkish green-yellow, and I thought it would be useful for mixing more landscape greens.

I couldn’t see the point of including Chinese White as a palette colour, as you would use white gouache if you needed to paint white areas, surely? Therefore, I have replaced it with Payne’s Gray to provide a convenience dark paint. But I rarely use it. At least it is there in case…

Up to now, my few paintings have used no more than a maximum of ten different paints on each, nor have I needed a colour that I have not been able to mix. This probably says more about my subject matter rather than the suitability of my palette, but it has worked for me so far.