With all the extra busyness of this time of year (with the added task of interviewing new realtors), my testing of turquoise watercolor paints got sidetracked. Until recently, the only turquoise I had was Winsor & Newton cobalt turquoise light (Daniel Smith calls this pigment cobalt teal blue). Though this color is the perfect match for the swimming pool, as in the sketch below, it’s just too pale for me. I’ve had this small sample of the color for years and found very little use for it.
But this year I have been very drawn to the color turquoise. In fact, that’s an accent color I want for our new barndominium, whenever we actually get it built. With all that lovely wood interior, turquoise just seems to fit. (Our couch and my favorite Morris chair are upholstered in brown fake leather; perhaps I’ll add a small southwestern pattern rug with turquoise in it? And maybe a touch of turquoise in the kitchen backsplash?) Hence my quest for the “right” turquoise watercolor paint to add to my new palette configuration as one of my 4 “just for fun” colors.
Daniel Smith’s phthalo turquoise is a gorgeous deep teal and when I found it, I thought it was The One. But then I tried cobalt turquoise — such wonderful granulation! And it is one of the two pigments used in the phthalo turquoise; by adding a touch of phthalo blue, I can still get that deep teal. So I think cobalt turquoise wins!
This past fall, I tested out the QoR watercolor set called High Chroma. It's got a Cobalt Teal that I just loved painting with especially against their Pyrrole Orange and Quinacridone Magenta. It's a little more opaque than the Daniel Smith paints. When I mixed the teal with the Dioxazine Purple, I got a deep wedgewood blue color (great for shading).
ReplyDeleteOoh, I need to try mixing it with purple! Sounds lovely.
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