Often
when you are starting out it’s difficult to know what tubes of paints to buy
with the huge array of paints available.
Each main manufacturer will have student ranges and artist ranges. The Winsor and Newton student range is called
Winton and the Daler Rowney student range is called Georgian. There are of course other manufacturers that
you may prefer to use.
The
main difference the artist range will be both better quality colours using
better quality pigments with more intensity of colour. Being a professional artist I use a combination
of Winsor and Newton Winton range and the far superior Winsor and Newton artist
range. Below is a range of colours that I
recommend you buy as a base collection:
French
Ultramarine
Deep, intense,
semi-transparent, violet blue used a great deal to tint other colours, but
mixes with Alizarin Crimson to make rich
violets or with yellows for good vegetation greens. A slow drier.
Prussian
Blue
A strong, cold, green blue
with tinting power. Good for shadows.
Cobalt
Blue
Bright, rich blue which makes
a good clear sky blue. Also very useful
in creating flesh tones.
Cerulean
Blue
A highly opaque sky blue
leaning towards green rather than violet.
A quick drier.
Sap
Green
A good ready-mixed,
semi-transparent yellow green. For best results for greens – mix yourself.
Use Cadmium Orange and Violet
to neutralise greens.
Cadmium
Red
Bright, opaque red, developed
to replace the very expensive Vermillion.
Mixes with cadmium yellow
to make a rich orange or with
blue to make dull browns. A slow drier.
Alizarin
Crimson
A truly luscious deep red
Crimson. Makes a rich transparent glaze
though only moderately durable
in very thin washes. High oil content makes it a slow drier.
Cadmium
Yellow
A strong, powerful yellow
which has replaced others, such as chrome yellow, because it is permanent.
Soft consistency, it is a slow
drier.
Lemon
Yellow
A deceptive colour, when first
squeezed out. It is a bright, cool, useful
yellow, making a range of dazzling greens when mixed with cobalt or French
ultramarine blue. A slowish drier.
Naples Yellow
An opaque colour. Good for
skin tones.
Yellow
Ochre
An opaque dull yellow which is
a useful mixer - for example, with blues to produce subtle landscape greens.
Burnt
Umber
Looks most unexciting when
squeezed out, this is an essentially strong, dark, warm, permanent earth
colour. Often used in underpainting as it is quick
drying.
Raw
Umber
Another quick drying,
permanent earth colour which is a yellow brown.
Almost transparent, it is useful
for underpainting. A very good mixer.
Burnt
Sienna
A transparent, reddish warm
earth colour with many uses for mixing warm tints & broken colours. Quick
drier.
Raw
Sienna
A yellow brown made from
natural clay containing iron oxide. A
quick drier.
Titanium
White (plus Mixing White – softer and oilier)
Whiter-than-white, made to
replace poisonous Flake White. Should not be used extensively in underpainting.
Black
is not essentially needed. Try using Paynes
Best wishes
Lee
