Playing with New Toys

One of the great things about this time of year is that I often have new toys to play with courtesy of the Christmas holiday. The other day I opened up my new Schminke watercolor set.

The set was actually a gift to myself - what we call in my house a "from me to me". I have been wanting to try the Schminke watercolor pans for some time and saw a great deal in December that suggested it was the right time to give them a whirl.

The set came with a list of included colors. The list has space for painting a swatch of each color. The paper the list is printed on is not a normal watercolor paper, so I had a difficult time getting the colors to bleed. But it was more than adequate for capturing a mid-value of the different hues.

The completed color chart is also useful because it lists the paints in the order the manufacturer placed them in the box. Since the pans are new to me, I cannot easily tell which blue is which just from how they appear in the pans. But with the chart, all I need to do is keep them in the order they came in. At least until I have all the paints memorized.

While I was playing with color, I decided to finally break out the color chart that I bought last year from Daniel Smith.

The chart I purchased contained samples of 238 of their "most popular" tube colors. Each sample is in the form of a "paint-able dot" of paint. And the paper used for the chart is actual watercolor paper.

To test the samples, I individually wet each dot and bled the color out trying to get a range of values. I also painted a single line of saturated color next to the dot.

In addition to the fun of trying the colors, I was pleased that each paint had it's common properties printed below the dot. This information included name, transparency, staining, granulation and light fastness. The only addition that I would suggest is the inclusion of the pigment number.

I currently have about 5 or 6 Daniel Smith tubes in my collection. Now that I have this visual tool I think that number will be going up.

What new art supplies have recently made their way into your studio? Are any of the additions something you would recommend to others? Please feel free to share your finds by leaving a comment.