I am always tweaking my palette a little – testing out a new variation. Yesterday I had a colour session with my friend Chris – testing my palette against her W&N ones and looking at some of our standard mixes and trying to work out what is causing certain murky effects. I wasn’t trying to push Daniel Smith paint but it was very obvious how much better they performed in the main. It was nice to re-visit some of the tests I have done over the years for my own palette and confirm that I still stand by those decisions.

I have almost locked in DS Transparent Red Oxide as my Burnt Sienna alternative and was testing a few options for French Ultramarine. Came across a half used tube of Schmincke Ultramarine Finest and really loved the purple tones to the neturals mixed. I am going to give it a go. It seems also to make lovely greens (but I didn’t want to add those test swatches to this page). It is funny that I have never really look at the FUB alternatives seriously – a fairly fundamental colour in any palette!

I need to do an updated listing on my blog of my latest palette…. very very happy with it…but still also testing and tweaking it slightly…mainly because I am somewhat addicted to colour and also watching watercolour do its own thing. Although I have had this current palette for 3 months now, I know I haven’t really tested all the mixing options in it yet…more playing with paint to come! Yay!