i'm puttering around this morning deciding on my travel palette. and getting drunk on freesia scent. wherever i go the jar of flowers follow me! i am flat-out amazed at how many colors/shades/hues/whatever can be made with
9 little half pans. here's the 12 i have so far. W= windsor newton artist colors C= cotman windsor newton (student grade):
WN lemon yellow, C cad yellow, WN burnt sienna, WN quin gold, WN red, WN permanent rose, WN french ultra marine, WN cobalt, WN cobalt turquoise light, WN paynes grey, WN ivory black, C white.
along with 2 totally unnecessary since i can make them with the other colors: C purple lake & C viridian. but since i have 2 extra slots i added those. i can also make the grey & black, but it's ever so convenient not to.
and since you didn't ask, yes, there is a HUGE difference between the cotmans & the WN artist colors. WN are way more intense & rich. i ordered that little cotman set just for the palette, but filled it with different pans. those cotmans went to the koi sakura case. if you pull out the plastic palette holding the sakuras there are some half-pan and whole pan slots. by the way, i also saw a noticable difference between the cotmans and sakuras. cotmans are better. but i did get a lot of use out of my little sakura set – a year's worth!
in the end though i'm just a chimp with a watercolor brush in my gnarled leathery mitt. who, i might add, had a helluva fun time making mixing & splashing. what is so incredible to my chimp mind is how you can put 2 colors together like red & french ultra marine and get a color that is virtually black. say whaaat?! also the red + cobalt make such deep and delicious shades. oyvey!
in my usual haphazard method absent of any logic, i made this mishmosh palette to remind myself when i'm in holland of what makes what when paired with what.
it's possible that i got a little excited by the orangey russet red shades that look identical here. it's also possible that my dutch stamps arrived and i scanned them and blew them up and this was an extremely rewarding and titillating thing to do. everything's better bigger right? no? oh, okay.
see for yourself.
also at dawn i stumbled out of moss cottage and was rewarded with THIS spectacle of epiphylum blooms gone wild.
okay well enough about ME. what's shakin' bacon?
pat!!!!!!!!!! i DID NOT know of it and i am cray cray happy that you shared. going to look right now. already know i will love it.
everyone: thanks for your thoughts. i always love reading them and exploring your blogs and other things you share.
hi helen,
in my last travel journal i used only watercolors. will probably do the same in this one. in my visual journals i use both. the cheap craft paints i use do not usually cause the pages to stick together – the finish is matte. if your pages do, you can just put a piece of vellum over the top. some peeps use wax paper, but i tend not to like the look of it in my books. you could also prob put some sort of fixative over the top, but that is too fancy schmancy for the type of visual journaler i am. mostly i do not care and most of the time nothing sticks
Loving the prep you did for this one MaryAnn. really great info. I have a couple of questions if I might..
Do you use both watercolors and acrylics in a journal or do you tend to stick with one specific paint medium per journal?
When you do use acrylics do they not stick the pages together?
Thanks or your input.
Your apartment in Amsterdam looks wonderful. Would you please share the name of the website where you found it? Thanks!
You can order empty pans from Daniel smith and fill them with your fav tube watercolors,……..and I think you would enjoy a set of peerless watercolor papers….they are ingenious……..jw
Where do you get the stamps? I am kinda clueless about this stuff and would love some for a project I am working on. BTW, I will be closely following your trip to Amsterdam and can’t wait to see your impressions. Lots of canals, bicycles and kind people.
Next year, try Schminke pans….I finally did and they are incredibly easy to re-wet, rich and creamy and intense…I am in love!
I just got a bunch of new watercolor canvases and this looks like such fun! I’m going to try mixing them with acrylic to create kind of a night sky thing…and these colors are so much richer than the cheapie set I ahve!
AWESOME. Everything. Epi flowers, watercolors, the whole journal. The Holland palette…sheer genius. Just what I’ve come to expect from Moss Cottage. Happy trails!!
susan – you will be waiting a loooooong time. i am really happy with my windsor newtons and doubt i will be buying anymore. till i run out that is!
Love, Love it! All of it. 🙂 Happy Travels!
Sheila in Oregon
When I saw that palette and read “half pans” , I thought of this one: http://www.wisdomwoman.com/whatever/?p=1647
have you tried Daniel Smith water colors yet. Im curious about them too. I’ll let you be the test kitchen.
I am watching ROD videos right now. I am commenting because I was just at the point in the folding and cutting video where you said pages could be “sewed” and over it you corrected yourself with “sewn” and I knew we were more alike than ever I thought. Getting ready to go do some hunting and gathering to at least get things to that point. Thanks for such faboo classes!
Wow gorgeous flowers!! Love all the color playing. I am partial to water colors. I ordered some of those little half pans frm Daniel smith to fit in an Altoids lozenge box. Working on it. Absolutely love the big stamp!! So very inspiring. Everything you do and your lovely lovely Moss Cottage!
WOW, epis gone wild!! I should be so lucky! Love your color swatches, as always.
You are rocking and socking my world this evening, the bigged up postage is my newest heart throb I’m thinkin; those reds are; stunning beyond all reason, of course paint play is something that should be done with careless abandon and it sort of looks like you’ve got that down just right and who can argue with an epiphylum in bloom. I wouldn’t if my life depended on it, as that is a heck of a ‘rockum’ ‘sockum’ flower. I’m soaking up all the colorful displays of delight in the ever evolving Amsterdam journal. Lookin so fine!!!!!! later gater
Holy Moly, Batman!!! The epi flower display is breathtaking? What is the name of this beauty? I wonder if I could grow them indoors in the high desert? I so love flowers and find it almost impossible to garden here because of our extreme heat and alkaline soil.
Making up the color mixes is such a good idea, eliminating those awful mud mixtures which will spoil a painting quicker than you can say mud.
Love the BIG stamp and the colors.
OMG!!! The Epiphylum – that’s amazingly beautiful!
The journal looks fantastic! Love the big stamp idea,too.
xo,s
Hi Mary Ann, I think the blown up stamp is excellent! You will love it in Holland. I spent 4 weeks there recently, and also 2 years ago as my son is living there. He is in Utrecht which is a beautiful and groovy town worth visiting on the train (30mins from Amsterdam) as it used to be the main city of Holland until 16th century and it’s canals were all built in 11th century!!! But there’s so much to see in Amsterdam, perhaps you’ll just stay there?
You’ll LOVE the newly refurbished Rijksmuseum, make sure you hire the audioguide, totally worth it. Have fun!!
Ok, this is some hot stuff you are writing about here, MAM! You have me quivering in my little dutch clogs (wish I had some, the nearest I have are some Swedish ones, and they are not wooden, but I digress). The color palette mixing – oh divine stuff – thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I am off this very minute to grab by Winsor Newtons. Please share more of this watercolor candy!!
glenda it is 140 pound hot press
This is such a great idea, I do have one question that is bothering me. what is the weight of the paper you use for your sketching and painting in you book? Is it 90 lb or 140 lb, cold press or hard press? I am beginning to prepare my book