Hearth & Horn

Notes from Gurney Journey

5-color palette recommended by John Stobart in his book The Pleasures of Painting Outdoors: You can paint almost anything with those five colors

• titanium white
• cad yellow light
• pyrrole red
• burnt sienna
• ultramarine blue

A brand available in Britain he recommends is Winsor and Newton

The most affordable route is to get watercolours in tubes and put into pans; he prefers gouache straight from the tubes. He stores unused tubes in large glass jars with lids that seal tightly. That keeps them from drying out.

He often adds a white gouache because it's useful to have an opaque white to put as a top layer

Quoting from a 1924 book by Harold Speed: You can use cheaper paints when you're a student, but even if you're poor, you shouldn't skimp on brushes.

Colors--Here's a basic set of 12 half pans. These are really all you need.

• 
  Payne's grey (a bluish black)
• 
  Ultramarine blue
• 
  Cerulean blue
• 
  Viridian (tube)
• 
  Lemon yellow
• 
  Cadmium yellow (can be toxic - modern equivalent hansa)
• 
  Yellow ochre
• 
  Raw sienna
• 
  Sepia
• 
  Burnt sienna
• 
  Cadmium red (can be toxic - modern equivalent pyrrole)
• 
  Alizarin crimson (tends to fade - modern eqivalent quindacrome)

Eight more classic colors if you have room for them.

• 
  Permanent green
• 
  Cobalt blue
• 
  Prussian blue
• 
  Sap green
• 
  Gamboge
• 
  Raw umber
• 
  Light red
• 
  Ivory black

Sources:

• What's in your kit?


• Watercolour In the WIld Materials


• Gouache Materials List


• Making Gouache stay Wet on the Palette


• How to clean out an oil painting brush


• Watercolour Pigment Poll