Well that was fun! Thank you for swatching all of these for us. I'm sure it was very time consuming. It was so generous of you to swatch the colors that you weren't interested in, but shared that information with us anyway. Thank you for all you do and with such joy!
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I am a total gear nerd, so even though it took time, it was still fun! And, so worth it when others find it useful, fun, or entertaining!
Very interesting swatching session to watch. I love Daniel Smith and especially the primateks. It was interesting to see you swatch the primateks so quickly and disregard them as being nothing special. I’m relieved to say that you have very underrated them. The magic in the primateks often lies in the beautiful granulation and separation you get from the ground up stone. It appears a lot of time after the swatch has dried. (If you’ve used enough water.) It creates amazing effects. I have several in my collection that I just love! Especially if I’m painting landscapes, greenery, or rocks. They truly create such amazing effects. I have only watched this part of your swatching sessions but am intrigued to go watch your other sessions now. Thank you for going to all the work to swatch them all. I painted big swatches from all of mine also to use for a resource when buying paint.
thank you for the note, and for sharing your experience with the Primatek paints!! Since filming that section, I've added one to my palette, and I am totally in love- Sodalite!! It has that incredible granulating quality you mention, and I really realized that the little dots simply didn't have enough pigment for me to really be able to experience the pigments to their full potential. I feel like I need to make a follow-up video soon! What are your favorite Primatek colors?? I'd love to hear, as I will slowly try out more of them :)
I am a bit late but I finally finished all 5 swatching videos. I have the DS dot cards but I didn’t swatch them on separate paper…I can see how that would help me get a better feel for each color. But your comments and analysis were so helpful! There were some colors I had been tempted to try, but I think I’ll hold off. Would you be willing to do a video about your palette and discuss what you like or don’t like about the colors you have. BTW, love your ArtToolKit folio! I have one and love it…but I keep wanting to get more colors. I trying to tell myself that I don’t need two folios. 😊 hence why I so intrigued by your choices.
Oh my gosh you are so dedicated to watch all of them! I'm so happy you found them helpful, and I just added your suggestion to my content list, it is a GREAT idea that I am excited to film, possibly even in the next few days. If you have any questions about specific colors feel free to ask! Also, I tried out a few new colors last year, and just carried them in my regular sized pocket palette in addition to the main Folio palette. The magnetic pans make it easy to move things around, so if something from the second palette struck my fancy I could move it into the main one. (If I'm not backpacking, I often have a pocket palette with me with the mixing pans, so I have a dedicated space to mix watercolor and white gouache. I'll be sure to show this in the materials / palette video! And, in that mixing palette there's a few spots for new colors to rotate through). I personally usually buy new colors very infrequently, partially because when I'm teaching I try to stick to the same colors (I have 16 I use the most often in my Adventure Art Academy classes), and mostly because I tend to get a little overwhelmed and forget about a new one! So, the dot cards were a really interesting experience because they led me to buy THREE new colors all at once, and two of those three became favorites (Sodalite, and Quinacridone violet). I also got Perylene violet which I only started to appreciate and use more in the last few months, and I've been really loving the more subtle mixing possibilities compared to Quin. violet. I'll share more in the video!! Lastly, I also traded out two of my standard pans for 4 mini pans, which allowed me to try out a few new colors. I have some that I really don't use often (like viridian), so that helped me make the space in the same folio for some experimental colors!
Will you consider doing a video on mixing the colors you use to make browns, greens, purples/violets and grays. I'd be very interested in seeing the possibilities. Thanks
thank you for the note, Tim! The comments here help me know what folks are interested in, so I will add that to my list. I have some favorite grey and brown mixes that I'm stoked to share. In a recent video about choosing colors for Mount Rainier I show some of these, so that could be a video to check out as I work on the next ones :)
Hi. May I ask about Sodalite Genuine, you mentioned you use it a lot. I wonder, can’t it be mixed easily by combining Lunar black with some blue? Is it not a redundant color then? Thanks
Hi! good question! you might be able to mix something similar with lunar black and a blue like ultramarine, and likely something more green-leaning to shift it away from the more purple leaning nature of ultramarine. I will try to do some tests to see, but here's a bit more about why I will probably stick with sodalite anyway - Sodalite, as a granulating color it performs quite a bit differently than lunar black. Lunar black seems to have a lot of little fine particles that disperse and slide around really wet areas, and then settles, where sodalite is less prone to this. I really like the base blue cast of the color. I also prefer the mixability of sodalite over lunar black, which to my eye tends to skew things awfully dark and sometimes muddy, where sodalite plays really well with other colors in my palette. The last reason I like it is because as an ostensibly single-pigment color (there is some debate and uncertainty about this) it is easier to mix with, and works with my preference for a more limited palette (vs having to mix up the alternate, which might risk going more muddy). Hope that might help a bit!
@@artofhiking thank you so much for this informative response. I’ve been drawn to this colour and think will add it to my palette. Thanks again! Would love to see you posting more videos these days as I love your content 😊
May I ask one more thing please - I am debating perylene violet. Is it worthwhile or could it be easily mixed or is it unique in nature?I am relatively new to watercolour and would like to have useful colours but not spend a fortune at the same time. Thanks
@@peterihnat108 I ended up buying Perylene violet, and while I adore it for some landscapes (especially the desert) I do use it a lot less frequently than other colors. I would probably choose Quinacridone violet over Perylene violet if I wanted a red-leaning purple, as it mixes more brightly that can easily be tempered with some extra blue or even a brown like burnt umber, where the Perylene tends to make more subdued mixes. On the request of some other folks I just made a blog post listing all the colors currently in my palette (listed by use frequency - I may have nerded out and tallied up color use for field paintings for two years), and also listed by how they are arranged in my palette. I also list some of my favorite colors to start with at the bottom. Happy to answer more questions if you have them, drop a note in the comments on the blog! Also, you probably already saw it, but I have a separate video from last year where I swatched all the colors I had in my adventure painting kit! Blog post: www.theartofhiking.com/blog/current-watercolors Lastly, I mention this to most everyone because I love creating the classes so much, but shared with zero expectations: if you are interested in learning to paint landscapes I have an ongoing series of classes called the Adventure Art Academy! I film the classes outside and on-site all over the west, from glaciers in Alaska to alpine lakes in WA and desert arches in Utah, and then release a new one each month! Students get access to every prior class I've shared so far (35 and counting). At the time of this comment, class access costs $27/month and folks can sign up and cancel anytime. www.adventureartacademy.com
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Well that was fun! Thank you for swatching all of these for us. I'm sure it was very time consuming. It was so generous of you to swatch the colors that you weren't interested in, but shared that information with us anyway. Thank you for all you do and with such joy!
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I am a total gear nerd, so even though it took time, it was still fun! And, so worth it when others find it useful, fun, or entertaining!
Very interesting swatching session to watch. I love Daniel Smith and especially the primateks. It was interesting to see you swatch the primateks so quickly and disregard them as being nothing special. I’m relieved to say that you have very underrated them. The magic in the primateks often lies in the beautiful granulation and separation you get from the ground up stone. It appears a lot of time after the swatch has dried. (If you’ve used enough water.) It creates amazing effects. I have several in my collection that I just love! Especially if I’m painting landscapes, greenery, or rocks. They truly create such amazing effects.
I have only watched this part of your swatching sessions but am intrigued to go watch your other sessions now.
Thank you for going to all the work to swatch them all. I painted big swatches from all of mine also to use for a resource when buying paint.
thank you for the note, and for sharing your experience with the Primatek paints!! Since filming that section, I've added one to my palette, and I am totally in love- Sodalite!! It has that incredible granulating quality you mention, and I really realized that the little dots simply didn't have enough pigment for me to really be able to experience the pigments to their full potential. I feel like I need to make a follow-up video soon!
What are your favorite Primatek colors?? I'd love to hear, as I will slowly try out more of them :)
I am a bit late but I finally finished all 5 swatching videos. I have the DS dot cards but I didn’t swatch them on separate paper…I can see how that would help me get a better feel for each color. But your comments and analysis were so helpful! There were some colors I had been tempted to try, but I think I’ll hold off.
Would you be willing to do a video about your palette and discuss what you like or don’t like about the colors you have.
BTW, love your ArtToolKit folio! I have one and love it…but I keep wanting to get more colors. I trying to tell myself that I don’t need two folios. 😊 hence why I so intrigued by your choices.
Oh my gosh you are so dedicated to watch all of them! I'm so happy you found them helpful, and I just added your suggestion to my content list, it is a GREAT idea that I am excited to film, possibly even in the next few days.
If you have any questions about specific colors feel free to ask! Also, I tried out a few new colors last year, and just carried them in my regular sized pocket palette in addition to the main Folio palette. The magnetic pans make it easy to move things around, so if something from the second palette struck my fancy I could move it into the main one. (If I'm not backpacking, I often have a pocket palette with me with the mixing pans, so I have a dedicated space to mix watercolor and white gouache. I'll be sure to show this in the materials / palette video! And, in that mixing palette there's a few spots for new colors to rotate through).
I personally usually buy new colors very infrequently, partially because when I'm teaching I try to stick to the same colors (I have 16 I use the most often in my Adventure Art Academy classes), and mostly because I tend to get a little overwhelmed and forget about a new one! So, the dot cards were a really interesting experience because they led me to buy THREE new colors all at once, and two of those three became favorites (Sodalite, and Quinacridone violet). I also got Perylene violet which I only started to appreciate and use more in the last few months, and I've been really loving the more subtle mixing possibilities compared to Quin. violet. I'll share more in the video!!
Lastly, I also traded out two of my standard pans for 4 mini pans, which allowed me to try out a few new colors. I have some that I really don't use often (like viridian), so that helped me make the space in the same folio for some experimental colors!
Will you consider doing a video on mixing the colors you use to make browns, greens, purples/violets and grays. I'd be very interested in seeing the possibilities. Thanks
thank you for the note, Tim! The comments here help me know what folks are interested in, so I will add that to my list. I have some favorite grey and brown mixes that I'm stoked to share. In a recent video about choosing colors for Mount Rainier I show some of these, so that could be a video to check out as I work on the next ones :)
Hi. May I ask about Sodalite Genuine, you mentioned you use it a lot. I wonder, can’t it be mixed easily by combining Lunar black with some blue? Is it not a redundant color then? Thanks
Hi! good question! you might be able to mix something similar with lunar black and a blue like ultramarine, and likely something more green-leaning to shift it away from the more purple leaning nature of ultramarine. I will try to do some tests to see, but here's a bit more about why I will probably stick with sodalite anyway -
Sodalite, as a granulating color it performs quite a bit differently than lunar black. Lunar black seems to have a lot of little fine particles that disperse and slide around really wet areas, and then settles, where sodalite is less prone to this. I really like the base blue cast of the color. I also prefer the mixability of sodalite over lunar black, which to my eye tends to skew things awfully dark and sometimes muddy, where sodalite plays really well with other colors in my palette. The last reason I like it is because as an ostensibly single-pigment color (there is some debate and uncertainty about this) it is easier to mix with, and works with my preference for a more limited palette (vs having to mix up the alternate, which might risk going more muddy). Hope that might help a bit!
@@artofhiking thank you so much for this informative response. I’ve been drawn to this colour and think will add it to my palette. Thanks again! Would love to see you posting more videos these days as I love your content 😊
May I ask one more thing please - I am debating perylene violet. Is it worthwhile or could it be easily mixed or is it unique in nature?I am relatively new to watercolour and would like to have useful colours but not spend a fortune at the same time. Thanks
@@peterihnat108 happy to help! I've been using Sodalite more and more over the last few years, and love its versatility!
@@peterihnat108 I ended up buying Perylene violet, and while I adore it for some landscapes (especially the desert) I do use it a lot less frequently than other colors. I would probably choose Quinacridone violet over Perylene violet if I wanted a red-leaning purple, as it mixes more brightly that can easily be tempered with some extra blue or even a brown like burnt umber, where the Perylene tends to make more subdued mixes.
On the request of some other folks I just made a blog post listing all the colors currently in my palette (listed by use frequency - I may have nerded out and tallied up color use for field paintings for two years), and also listed by how they are arranged in my palette. I also list some of my favorite colors to start with at the bottom. Happy to answer more questions if you have them, drop a note in the comments on the blog! Also, you probably already saw it, but I have a separate video from last year where I swatched all the colors I had in my adventure painting kit!
Blog post: www.theartofhiking.com/blog/current-watercolors
Lastly, I mention this to most everyone because I love creating the classes so much, but shared with zero expectations: if you are interested in learning to paint landscapes I have an ongoing series of classes called the Adventure Art Academy! I film the classes outside and on-site all over the west, from glaciers in Alaska to alpine lakes in WA and desert arches in Utah, and then release a new one each month! Students get access to every prior class I've shared so far (35 and counting). At the time of this comment, class access costs $27/month and folks can sign up and cancel anytime.
www.adventureartacademy.com