constantly tweaking

Every palette I’ve ever owned soon gets tweaked a bit. Always. So why should my CMYK palette be any different? I know the whole idea is to mix all colors from the original 4, but sometimes I want to get to a lovely neutral quickly — so I replaced the large mixing pan with standard and double pans, then added monte amiata natural sienna and transparent red oxide.

I borrowed this style of testing colors from Austin artist Lisa Spangler — a quick yet efficient way to see what other colors I can make. I love Lisa’s idea of making a folded card of these color tests to carry along in a sketch kit!

another Wimsey book

Still reading the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series written by Dorothy Sayers in the 1920-1930s . . . I sketched this while reading the 11th book, probably Sayer’s best mystery though critics of the day debated the implausibility of the murder “weapon”. Now I’m nearly halfway through book #12 — fun, witty stories!

CMYK palette play

A new toy arrived in the mail several weeks ago from Art Toolkit, but I didn't get around to playing with it right away. While I have previously put together a similar CMYK palette using my regular paints, I was curious about the handmade pigments from Greenleaf & Blueberry -- I bought this limited edition set as a way to try them out. And my normal way to try paints out is to make a mixing grid.

The paints have a lovely transparency and pick up easily with a brush. I'm not fond of strong staining pigments like phthalo's but this phthalo cyan is a dream to work with! Overall these are much brighter than my normal palettes but there is not much granulation, something I love. I definitely need to play with them more, next time mixing 3 pigments together for earthy and skin colors.

milkweed

When I wrote the heading “Common Milkweed”, I was meaning common as in “ordinary”, not type. Then, while trying to find out if there is a specific name to this variety, I found that there is a specific variety known as Common. I really don’t know what specific variety this milkweed is at all — I just found it a fascinating form to sketch!

For the seed floss bits spilling out of the center bit, I tried white gouache, a white Gelly Roll pen, and a water-based white Sharpie — none of them made as sharp of a white line as I was envisioning.

my current palette

For anyone curious about other sketchers’ palettes, this is a chart that I recently made of the current watercolors in my supply drawer. I seldom carry all of them with me.

Many are convenience colors that I just happen to like; for these, I added a side swatch trying to mix that color from my other selections. Quinacridone Rose is interchangeable with Quinacridone Red — I have a tube of each and can’t decide which I prefer. When the Piemontite is used up, I’ll probably replace it with Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet (correction) Lunar Red Rock.

On the reverse side, I made notes of each paint’s pigment code and properties. All are from Daniel Smith except Potter’s Pink, Cobalt Turquoise Light, and Perylene Green — these are from Winsor & Newton.

recent wildflowers and reading

I am still caught up with trying to read the complete Lord Peter Wimsey books written by Dorothy L. Sayers in the 1920-1930s. Normally a quick reader, I have been checking them out as ebooks from a Houston library and am constantly having to wait for another reader to turn the next one in (I prefer to read things in order).

Anyway, because of my voracious reading habit, I have been neglecting my sketchbook pages, just sketching a bit here and there of these wildflowers recently found on a friend's acreage. Finally finished this page last night -- that Monarda is extremely complex!

Since I am enjoying these clever mysteries so much, I looked into buying the complete set of 15 but I just can't wrap my head around spending $25 on EBOOKS!! (the lowest price I have found). A book that can be held in the hand can be passed on to others, but an ebook stops with the original purchaser. I found a complete used set for sale as Mass Market paperbacks but I am not willing to spend $125!

Still trying to decide . . .