The discoveries from producing my first color swatch sheet

February 10, 2019

First swatch sheet that includes all 12 pigments in their pure form plus tinted versions of each

• A little Titanium White converts a transparent color into an opaque without changing the saturation and tone much.

• Emerald green takes a lot of white to lighten. It’s a super strong color.

• I can more easily tell which colors tend toward the warm side vs cool by reviewing the lighter colors than I can by looking at the original colors.

• Some colors change quickly with a little white while some need a lot of white to change.

• Very oily paints (such as Alizarin Crimson) bleed under the tape super easily. So don’t paint with the super oily portions of the paints. The full-strength version of Alizarin Crimson took 6 weeks to dry simply because it was so oily!

• Be sure to paint the swatches on the template right side up! I used the bottom of the template for the top, by mistake, so I had to punch through my labels. Sigh. Mistakes are a great way to learn, though! You better bet I check that I’m using the top of the template for each subsequent swatch set!

If you want to learn more about this color mixing project that I’m working on, you can read more details starting with this post on color, my research and how I decided to embark on Richard Schmid’s recommended color mixing project from Alla Prima. Continue reading subsequent posts for additional details and finding.