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.
