How many colors are in your watercolor palette? Your colored pencil case?
Sandra Wall Armitage
More than I need for botanical as I often use different colours for other than botanical work. Also, I won [a] prize which included the whole range of watercolours.
Kathleen Baker
More than 40.
Susan Christopher-Coulson
I have the full set of 120 Derwent Artists’ pencils, which I mostly use (inevitably some colours more than others!) but I also have other favourite colours/pencil types which I can use when needed.
Susan Dalton
I probably have 50+ colours in my watercolour palette, although quite a large number of these are used only on rare occasions.
Brigitte Daniel
Lots! But I tend to choose a set of colours for a particular painting. Much depends on the harmonics within the plant and I try to match this – think of the overtones in a church bell – I look at colours in the same way. For any particular plant, I usually choose a small number of colours that I mix in and mix out of using a large number of tints applied to the basic palette, ‘bending’ the colours to catch the colours of the plant.
Susan Hillier
Approximately 50.
Jennifer Jenkins
I work mainly with tubes of colour and have more than 50.
Kay Rees Davies
As I have specialized in using and mixing colours in different makes of watercolour paint, I have at least 200. I make very careful notes when mixing colour at the start of a new painting for future reference. In the case of finding the ‘teal’ colour I was able to refer to the notes I made when painting Puya alpestris about ten years ago. I am “addicted” to buying and trying new colours, but there are a few I hardly ever use. Warning – don’t get carried away!
Margaret Stevens
I have a complete set of Sennelier watercolours – around 80. I also have a mix of Winsor & Newton Artists, Rowney and Schmincke. About another 70 to 80. Some are hardly ever used and some are in constant use. However since setting up the Distance Learning Diploma Course, I get scarcely any time to paint. It used to be about 40 paintings a year, mainly commissions and working non-stop. I still work non-stop, but if I manage 10 pictures I am lucky which is frustrating at times.
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