How I Choose Colors – Watercolor Painting Advice | Liron’s Podcast – Episode 71

Today I want to teach you how I go about choosing my colors for watercolor painting.

We will talk about both the MACRO and the MICRO.

How I Choose my Colors – Macro

Colors on a macro level means – what colors do I even have on my palette? What colors are my go-to?

Generally speaking, there are a couple of criteria I look into when choosing which colors to purchase. Here are some of them.

Primary colors – I generally work mostly with primary colors. I don’t like convenience mixtures as much, and prefer to mix my own.

So I make sure to always have 1-2 versions of every primary color in my palette – blues, reds and yellows.

Temperatures – I am in the “I care more about the values rather than a specific color” camp (gee, that’s a long name!). But one thing I do pay attention to is temperature.

I find this is important for creating a sense of depth in my works.

Lightfastness – This basically means how much resistant the paint is to light. Lower lightfastness means that with continuous exposure to light, the paint will fade / change over time.

I prefer my paints to stay the same long into the future, so I make sure to use lightfast paints as much as possible, especially when it comes to works made for clients.

Range of Values – This is crucial for me. I tend to create strong contrasts in my works. And I need paints that can mix dark values. This is why I try to use paints that have a large range of values.

This is why I love, for example – Phthalo Blue. It can simply get so dark, which makes it very useful. Another paint in this category is Carbazole violet (and so despite it being a secondary color, I still use it for this specific merit).

Transparency – Lately I’ve come to love transparent watercolors more and more. I find they mix more easily and predictably.

This is a matter of personal taste really, so see what works for you.

These are all guidelines I use for choosing my colors on a macro level.

How I Choose my Colors – Micro

Now I’ll explain how I choose colors while working on a painting.

I get asked about this ALL THE TIME.

INTUITION

People always seem to wonder how I “knew” to use a specific paint somewhere.

The answer is simpler than people think. I developed an intuition for using different colors. This means I don’t know exactly what the end result will look like, but I do have a sense for what will work out.

Minimal Palette – One of my guiding principles are to use as few paints as I can. I find this leads to better color harmony (all mixes stem from the same 3-5 paints). But in addition to harmony, it also simplifies the work process – less decisions to make (;

Temperature – I talked about this earlier. When choosing what color to use, I almost always take temperature into account. Is this a direct warm sunlight? Then I’ll probably use yellow. Is it a mid-value? Perhaps red. A dark shadow? Blue.

These can of course be alternated. I spice up my shadows with warm colors as well. Shadows aren’t monotone.

Exaggeration – Sometimes I’ll simply exaggerate the color bias I see. So if there’s a building wall that’s slightly brown / red – I may paint it using a PURE red. It may seem like too much initially, but I find that I can very easily mute it down by glazing over it with blue, for example.

Most of this really isn’t science. Rather – it’s more of a habit, stylistic choice or trial and error.

See What Colors Work for YOU

The main advice I can give YOU, is to see what works best for you. Don’t worry about my own paints – experiment and see what looks good to your eyes, and how it works with your style.

And with that being said – let’s move onto the Artist Corner.

Artist Corner

Today’s featured artist is Manolo Jimenez. Not to be confused with the football manager of the AEK Athens team, our Manolo is a watercolor painter.

I couldn’t find much information about him, but he is a fantastic painter. His focus, from the works I’ve seen is on larger scale compositions, relative to the focal point. This means the center of focus usually takes up a small part of the painting. So it could be a large corridor in a building, with a tiny single figure, for example.

He is a member of the Association of Watercolors of Andalucia, and exhibits both in Spain and worldwide.

You can see some of his fantastic works here: Manolo Jimenez

And Here’s where you can find me

Check out my YouTube Channel – Liron Yanconsky

Or ask me questions on Instagram – @LironYanIL or Snapchat – @LironYan3

I hope you enjoyed this one. Take care, and we’ll talk again really soon,

— Liron

Undersea Green – Daniel Smith Watercolor | The Paint Show 23

Hi there, today I want to share with you my review of Undersea Green by Daniel Smith.

You can see the full episode of The Paint Show here:

And if you want a written version, read on (;

Undersea Green – Daniel Smith Watercolor

I originally got this paint together with Daniel Smith’s Secondary set. In fact, this review will wrap up the series of The Paint Show episodes regarding this set.

I really loved this one from the beginning, and it’s special characteristics impressed me (you’ll soon see what I refer too).

With time I started using it extensively for foliage, leaves and trees. I used it (together with Carbazole Violet) as the background of this painting.

I especially love to mix it with blues and yellows (and even reds!) to create a variety of greens.

Paint Info

Undersea Green is made of three different pigments:

  1. Ultramarine Blue (PB29)
  2. Quinacridone Gold (they say PO48, but that’s the pigment for Quinacridone Burnt Orange, which is a little strange. Quin. Gold should be PO49).
  3. Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150)

This makes it rather simple to mix, if you want to create if for yourself (assuming you can do so without Quin. Gold, which sounds possible).

Some more stats:

  • Series 1 – so cheaper than Quin. Burnt Orange.
  • Semi-transparent
  • Granulating (with a beautiful effect too! The blues and yellows separate)
  • Medium-high staining.

This color is highly pigmented and is easy to achieve dark values with.

Here’s what the pigments look like when they separate into blues and oranges / yellows:

In the video I demo what this paint looks wet on dry, wet-in-wet, and using dry brush strokes.

Here are some examples.

Conclusion

I think this is a very useful color, and I definitely prefer it over more “artificial” looking greens such as Sap Green (which used to be a favourite of mine).

I like my colors to have many uses for me and be versatile, so this is a great one in my opinion.

If you want to get it, here are affiliate links (I get a small commission and you pay the same price):

Undersea Green Tube: http://amzn.to/2EZSwWM

Daniel Smith Secondary set: http://amzn.to/2FzE20T

If you are interested in the other two colors in the set (Quin. Burnt Orange and Carbazole Violet), I highly recommend getting the set. It ends up being much more cost-effective (:

And this is it for today. I hope you enjoyed this one, and we’ll talk soon!

– Liron