Comparing 3 Daniel Smith Transparent Oxide watercolors
Yellow, Brown, and Red - and how different a painting is from a swatch
Lately I’ve been doing more color exploration - and especially with the daily color prompts to match with the World Watercolor Month subject prompts! I’m trying colors I don’t remember playing with, even though I had a tube, and I know I swatched it years ago…ha!
Scroll for the invitation to a free livestream right here on Substack this week, as well as your last chance to sign up for the Faith Collective Workshop!
But the prompt for today is one I just outright ixnayed when I saw it. “Diabolical.” it reminds me of some of the Inktober prompts that make me roll my eyes - so Imma gonna glaze right past it.
But since I would be getting out my Transparent Brown Oxide for the DS prompt….I thought HEY! I have two more of them. How about a comparison?
See if you can tell the difference between swatching them at the start, then actually painting them - it might show you just why I don’t trust just swatches to decide what I think of a color!
Watch the video below - and if you could, pop over to YouTube to leave a thumbs up to feed the algorithm!
Supplies (affiliate links provided at no cost to you; thank you for using my links and supporting my work!) Paper: Arches Bright White Rough 22x30 sheet BLICK | JACKSONS
Daniel Smith Watercolors: Transparent Yellow Oxide BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS Transparent Brown Oxide BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS Transparent Red Oxide
BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS Brushes: Escoda Joseph Zbukvic #16 mop Winsor & Newton Kolinsky Sable Series 7 Round #8 BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS Da Vinci Maestro Kolinsky Sable Round #4 BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS
The Transparent Oxides
While the Transparent Brown Oxide is the color of the day - a comparison seemed like a good thing to combine…..and it’s interesting to look at the swatches. Imperfect ones, because, well, frankly - when we’re painting, we paint imperfect washes and brushstrokes. “Perfect” swatches of color might be pretty in a notebook, but they don’t tell us much at all about how it performs in a real painting.1
Hues - Both the Red and Brown lean more towards red, but obviously red moreso; Brown is more neutral. Yellow is the brightest and in the…yellow family. Yes, I’m Captain Obvious here!
Granulation - I don’t think I’ve had quite this much a difference in swatches vs the painting before. Each of the color granulated more in the painting - some may have been because I chose Rough textured paper once I saw how much granulation might be possible. Red was least granulating, and yellow and brown much more so.
Varying values - Each of the three had some differences from watered-down to full-on from-the—tube value. Yellow had the least, as it never got really dark.
Recommendation - to those who paint watercolor abstracts, the yellow in particular might be really interesting to play with!
Which of the three colors might you see yourself using? For what subject or technique?
This mini-painting (5” x 7”) and so many more are available for purchase, with a percentage being donated to the International Child Art Foundation. Your help is appreciated with our fundraising efforts; our community normally donates around $2000 each July, we only just cleared $200. Thank you to all who have participated so far, and who plan to throughout the final stretch.
Classes are also a fundraiser this month - any medium, not just watercolor!
Events this week!
The Faith Jounaling Workshop is coming right up on the 21st and 22nd! Two days of inspiration, ideas, and perspective, and I’ve got an exclusive nature journaling page to share with you. Have you signed up yet? Let me know! Early bird pricing ends the 20th, and today’s the 18th, so get on it. Only $37 for a ton of value!
Come back on Wednesday for a FREE Substack live! We’ll explore Goethite - with the subject prompt “Cardboard.” Which could get very interesting! Be sure you’re signed up as a free or paid subscriber so you get the reminder in your email.
Dad jokes
About….deer!
How do you let a deer know you like her?
You fawn over her.What did the deer say when it left the barbershop?
"I feel like a million bucks!”What game do fawns like playing at sleepovers?
Truth-or-deer.Why did the deer get braces?
He had buck teeth.
Caveat: Your painting style should dictate the type of swatches you make. If you are a perfect-wash-painter, by all means go for perfection in your swatches. If you’re even sloppier looser than me as a painter, incorporate that in your swatching to one extent or another.