Sunday, October 7, 2012

Cotman Watercolor Reload


So I spent the summer doing watercolors but I needed a quick and easy way to do it.

love my Cotman watercolor travel set, I bought it while studying in Florence, Italy back in the summer of 2000 but as I matured as an artist, not all of the colors in the pallet worked for me anymore. I wanted to use a limited pallet that was more versatile. After much internet research I found a few articles on how to make my own watercolor set out of Altoid containers and pill boxes, but at the end of the day I just could not get rid of my $12 Cotman watercolor set so I decided to reload it.


I removed all of the half pans from the box and ordered empty half pans on-line. I also ordered 8ml tubes of Winsor & Newton watercolor paint. I wrote the name of the color on the side of the half pan for organizational purposes and for easy reloading of the colors.  



 I filled each empty half pan with one-third of a tube using a slightly altered limited but extremely versatile pallet that was introduced to me in graduate school by my professor and great illustrator William Low.

Warm primary’s: Cadmium Red Light, Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Yellow

Cool primary’s: Quinacridone Red, Phthalo Blue, Cadmium Lemon        

Additional paint: Cobalt Violet, Viridian, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Payne's Gray and White Gouache. As you can see I simply kept the Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre from the original set


I let the paint sit in the half-pans for 48 hours until dry and then placed them into the travel set.


Now using a basic binder clip I can attach the travel set to my Moleskin watercolor sketchbook and with a water brush (synthetic brush with water in the handle) I can now do Plain Air watercolor studies as easily as sketching with a pencil. 

I will post some of my water color studies in the next few weeks. 







3 comments:

Heat Treated Pallets Dubai said...

Nice innovative idea.It is interesting to read your experience.

Anonymous said...

"I removed all of the half pans from the box and ordered empty half pans on-line."

Where on line? I can't find the Cotman half pans anywhere. Thanks

Nathaniel Gold said...

Thanks for the question Anonymous. The pans are not actually Cotman brand they are Daniel Smith. hey are a little bigger and they stick out of the box a little but it works just fine. try here http://www.shopwiki.com/l/Empty-Half-Pan-Box