Each Sunday this summer I am looking at my paint “collection”:
Tools: Watercolors, 1, Yellow-Orange;
Tools: Watercolors, 2, Red-Pink
Tools: Watercolors, 3, Greens to Yellows
Tool: Watercolors, 4, Blues to Greens
Tools: Watercolors, 5, Violet and Purple
Tools: Watercolors, 6, Browns and Golds

White in included in this post.
How do you paint with white except as an absence or gouache?
I decided to try my new De Atramentis Document white ink
on a page primed with De Atramentis Document blue ink.
A total experiment, first time.
I tried to draw but DeA Doc white ink clogged the JinHao pen within two days,
but then , it is a Jinhao and they seem to clog easily.  (Hate. Them.)
So I brushed it on, and this is going in for my entry today on World Watercolor Day!
Reminds me of old time blueprints….  I will play more with this!

In white “watercolors” I have M. Graham white gouache, and like it just fine….

Nuff said about white.

NOTE: All paints Daniel Smith (DS) unless it says
otherwise — including the Primatek colors.

Ignore the bit of purple above.

   First, let’s talk colors that look the same,
have the same pigment structure,
or are called by the same name out of the way:

PAYNES GREY

Yarka (by Nevskaya Palitra) Paynes Grey is very blue against QoR Paynes Grey, Copper Phthalocyanine, Amorphous Carbon, Quinacridone, PB15:3 / PBk7 / PV19.
I don’t have the pigment configuration for Yarka because it was not on the wrapper.

Then by chance, because of coming in sets, I have Sennelier’s 755 Ivory Black PBk9.
Both were in pans when I wet them, one is a pan watercolor (left.)
The tube dropped into my pan wets better and comes across darker than the pan version.

To see references on BLACK/WHITE/GREY from handprint, click through.

The Keepers:

In the Black/Grey palette:
QoR Ardoise Gray,
Hydrated Aluminum Silicate, PBk19,
is a keeper.  I use it a lot in buildings and mixes.
Tracey Fletcher King has gone all
a-twitter about Paynes Grey,
one of her favorite colors —
shadows, etc. — and I like
QoR Paynes Grey,
shown right from their site,
best because it is not so very blue —
so many of them are greyed indigos —
with Copper Phthalocyanine /
Amorphous Carbon / Quinacridone,
PB15:3 / PBk7 / PV19.
I might try DS next time just
to see if theirs is better.

Oh, I am nuts for grey.
Charcoal, graphite, you name it.

I am keeping all of these for their various obvious characteristics
— some creamy and smooth, some gritty:
Graphite Gray, PBk10; Greenleaf & Blueberry Magnatite;
Greenleaf & Blueberry Shungite.  If only I could get
Greenleaf & Blueberry to sell their colors in tubes.
I hate the way they load their pans to the tippy-top,
and they slosh over the sides into the pans as you wet them.
I can’t get enough of Primatek Hematite, left.
I use it all the time and am in love with its gritty reddish-grey.
Finally, even though I never use it, I will keep
Sennelier Ivory Black 755, PBk9, which came in a set,
and M.Graham Titanium White Gouache, PW6,
which I am enjoying.

The Rarely or Never Agains:

PAYNES GREY

  Yarka Paynes Grey, because, very blue; Sennelier Ivory Black 755 PAN, meh.

Iridescent is not my thing.  They come off too sparkly in a painting.
Especially QoR Iridescent Silver (Fine), PBk7 (Qor makes the best metallics) and Iridescent Gold, Mica & Iron Oxides, PW20.  I need them for the rare time I use them, and will buy QoR only from now on.  However, Primatek Kyanite and Primatek Fuchsite I bought not knowing they had an iridescent shimmer, and I have used them for cars occasionally.  Still, they have that sparkle quality I always end up regretting.

Below Teoh Yi Chie of  Parkablogs reviewing water-soluble Graphites from YouTube.

Pentalic Field Journal, Platinum Carbon pen, and Greenleaf & Blueberry,
Sennelier, Holbein, QoR, M.Graham and Daniel Smith watercolors.

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