When you are first starting out in watercolour, it can be quite daunting, as well as costly, choosing materials.
One of the first questions students ask me are what are what colours should I purchase.
A very simple yet more than adequate palette consists of only six colours. Three warm primaries and three cool primaries. Obviously, every artist has their own colour palette they tend to work with and the more painting you do, more colours you will add to your palette. Personally, I use transparent colours when I paint, as I build colours slowly using glazes or washes. By using transparent colours, the colour you have laid down first can still be seen after the next layer is added, creating a new colour.
The colours I would recommend to start with are: Ultramarine Blue (W), Cerulean Blue (C), Organic Vermillion (W), Permanent Rose (C), New Gamboge (W), Hanza Yellow (C). Please choose professional grade paints only as student grade will never give you the beautiful richness needed to make your paintings glow.
By mixing these colours together, you can achieve pretty much all the colours you require. For example, when you mix Cerulean and Hanza Yellow together you can achieve a range of greens which range between a clear sap green to a green with a turquoise lean.
Experiment with mixing Cerulean Blue with the New Gamboge, this will give you a totally different range of greens. Practice mixing your reds and yellows to make your oranges and your blues and reds to achieve your purples.
I so often am asked the question “Why are my painting muddy?” The colours a I have recommended above for your starting palette are all single pigment colours. When painting with watercolours, if you remember to only mix three pigments together, you won’t get mud, instead you will achieve glorious greys and browns.
Of course, when you become familiar with your paints, you can add more colours. Try to keep in mind that you want single pigment colours, which will allow you to mix crisp, clean colours.
I recommend you do some colour charts which will not only assist with colour mixing but are great for improving your brushmanship.
All the colours you see here are mixed from the six colours I have recommended.