My Current Basic Outdoor Watercolour Kit and Palette (September 2022)
I really enjoy seeing what is in other artists travel kits and palettes, so I thought I’d share mine. This is just my watercolour set up - I have a slightly different set up for gouache and I also have different pencil cases I sometimes take as well. Especially now we have been on the road and have a bit more space in the car than if I were just to take my kit in a bag, I have a few more things at my disposal. That said, this post is about my absolute basic go-to- kit.
The Absolute Basic
Of course, the absolute minimum is a piece of paper or sketchbook and a pen or pencil. But, I rarely just take that although I have been trying out the Rocketbook reusable notebooks for this sort of really minimalist kit.
The Kit I’ve been using for 2 + years
This includes:
Sketchbook - This varies, but I’m currently enjoying the Born Sketchbooks from Officeworks here in Australia
Watercolour box - I’ve modified a 12 pan box to fit 21 pans as above by removing the metal trays and using blu-tack to keep the pans stuck in
Cut sock that fits over my wrist
Pencil - I like the Pentel Twist-Erase mechanical pencils
1 or 2 waterbrushes - I like the Pentel Aquash brushes, and will usually have a flat one and one of the small, medium or large round ones
That’s it really. I sometimes have chuck in a few waterproof pens or watercolour pencils but this is the basic kit.
The Sketchbook
I have done a post on the Born sketchbook here if you’re curious as to why I’m currently liking it.
I’ve also used Seawhite of Brighton’s A5 watercolour sketchbook which worked quite well, but I didn’t really like its size for me personally. If you like a true A5 size, this is a good one.
Moleskine’s Watercolour Journals were the first ones I used and I still have a few I’ll be getting through down the track. I do like these, mainly because I love their size and that you can get them in both landscape and portrait. Sadly the Born books only come in portrait format at this stage. Moleskine’s journals have been good too.
I’ve also used one of the Global Art Materials’ books and that was quite nice too. I liked the size of it.
These are the 3 I’ve tried and liked. As you can see, I’m not super particular about the sketchbook, and now that I’m liking gouache more as well, my preferences may change down the track.
For watercolour though I would rate the paper in this order: Seawhite of Brighton, then Global Art Materials then Moleskine. If you like heavy washes, the Seawhite of Brighton held up the best - not as good as proper watercolour 100% cotton paper of course, but better than the other two for sure and definitely better than the Born sketchbooks. However if you’re more into light washes or gouache, any of the above will work.
If I do switch over to using gouache as my primary medium, I think I’ll be looking for books with smoother paper down the track.
The Palette:
I’ve been using this little watercolour box outdoors for over two years, and this particular iteration has not changed for over a year (since May 2021).
The only change I made since setting this iteration up in May 2021: I replaced a self-mixed green with Mahogany brown in around Jan/Feb this year. I really enjoy this colour for its granulation which adds an extra dimension to the red earthy colours around me in the Northern Territory and now in Western Australia’s Kimberley region.
The box itself is a Jasart palette I got from my local art supplies shop - Jacksons Drawing Supplies in Fremantle. It is just a standard metal palette like the Meeden (or any other brand ones). It has taken quite a beating from heavy use and being dropped more than once, but it still works really well for me and does the job.
It was my very first watercolour palette and while I have three more Meeden ones I use for different things, this remained my sketching kit and the palette I use the most. The little stickers and magnet from Christmas Island on top are so I can easily pick out which box I’m looking for when I’m home and have all of them around.
I didn’t clean it up for the photo, because this is realistically what it looks like most of the time. I use whatever is left in the palette. I’ve tended to keep one well for blue skies, and one for darks but the rest are whatever I might need.
Re-jigging it to fit 21 colours has been great - it means I can have lots of non-essential-but-nice-to-have-colours whcih have been especially useful for quick sketches.
Because I’ve been mostly using it for outdoor sketching, it has a lot more earthy colours than I might perhaps have if I was setting this up for something like florals.
The Colours:
Left to right, top to bottom:
Buff Titanium - PW 6 - Daniel Smith
Australian Grey - PBr 7 and PY 42 - Art Spectrum
Lemon Yellow - PY 175 - Daniel Smith
Permanent Yellow Deep - PY 65 - Mission Gold
Green Gold - PY 150 - Mission Gold
Transparent Orange - PO 71 - Schmincke
Permanent Red - PR 242 and PO 62 - Schmincke
Cobalt Blue - PB 28 - Mission Gold
Delft Blue - PB 60 - Schmincke
Yellow Ochre - PY 43 - Mission Gold
Quinacridone Burnt Orange (stick) - PO 43 - Daniel Smith
Potter’s Pink - PR 233 - Schmincke
Purple Magenta - PR 122 - Schmincke
Scarlet Red - PR 254 - Schmincke
Cobalt Turquoise - PG 50 - Schmincke
Mahogany Brown - PBr 33 - Schmincke
Van Dyke Brown - PBr 7 - Mission Gold
Piemontite Genuine (stick) - Daniel Smith
Olive Green Yellowish - PO 62 and PG 36 - Schmincke
Cobalt Green Deep - PB 36 - Mission Gold
Perylene Green - PBk 31 - Schmincke
The Essential Colours
These 6 colours are my split-primaries at the moment. If I could only have 6 colours, it would be these.
Cobalt Blue (PB 28)
Cobalt Turquoise (PG 50)
Purple Magenta (PR 122)
Scarlet Red (PR 254)
Lemon Yellow (PY 175)
Permanent Yellow Deep (PY 65)
Two more semi-essentials:
Transparent Orange - Great for quick muted olive greens
Yellow Ochre - a more natural yellow for muted greens as well
Non-essential but useful favourites
Buff Titanium and Australian Grey - It may seem redundant to have both, but I really missed them both when I've removed them just to see if I would miss either.
Together they make mixing and creating a range of lighter and/or ‘milky’ colours a lot easier.
I use the two together for lighter eucalypt bark a lot. I also use them for sand, light stones and bricks.
Australian Grey adds a slight peachy-ness to colours. Funnily, it works nicely when added to so many colours to just mute things down that slight bit go create more of the natural shades particularly in the more temperate areas of Australia. I know it is not everyone’s favourite, but I’ve always found myself looking for it when I’ve removed it so it stays.
Potter’s Pink - similar to Buff Titanium and Australian Grey, I try to keep this on my palette for a quick, soft way to mute down most colours. So many birds seem to have shades of Potter’s Pink as well! I’ve used up a 5 ml tube of it a lot quicker than many other colours in my palettes (to be fair that’s also partly because it has quite a low tinting strength).
Green Gold - This has been invaluable for creating the gorgeous reflective yellow-greens in the ‘golden hour’ light just before sunset and just after sunrise.
Olive Green Yellowish - My absolute favourite green. I removed it to stop being lazy and force myself to mix my greens. After about 6 months, confident I could do it, I put this colour right back in. I love it, and use it in basically every sketch with green in it. I often use this as a base green to tweak for whatever green thing I’m sketching (unless it is a very very bright green).
Cobalt Green Deep - Similar to the above, I love love love this blue-green. Perfect base for so many blue-green Australian leaves. Probably not too many other uses for it for me, but I love it, and Cobalt Green by Qor is similar but just a bit darker and more granulating. Both as a bit of drama to foliage or greener waters. And I just love playing with them.
The Earthy Colours
For the Australian desert specifically, I already had Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Potter’s Pink on my palette before last May but I added Piemontite Genuine before our road trip and in February 2022, I added Mahogany Brown for greater depth.
These, when combined with Yellow Ochre, Van Dyke Brown and/or Transparent Orange give me a great range of earthy shades really quickly.
Colours I Want to Use Up and What I Want to Replace Them With
A lot of the colours in my palette aren’t my favourite colours but they fill a spot in the palette, do the job, and I’d like to use them up before I replace them with similar colours I like more.
Specifically, I prefer Schmincke’s Yellow Raw Ochre which I used up super quickly, to most other Yellow Ochres I've tried, but I have them, so I’ll use them. The Yellow Raw Ochre is a bit more muted. As you can see from the image on the left, the difference is subtle, so using the other Yellow Ochres does the job.
Daniel Smith’s Quinacridone Burnt Orange is really nice, but I have similar colours in Transparent Brown Oxide (Qor) or Transparent Sienna (Schmincke) which I think I like more so will use those next.
Likewise, while I like Schmincke’s Permanent Red, I’ll use the Quinacridone Red Light (Schminkce) in its place once it is finished - it has a bit more of a luminous quality.
The Van Dyke Brown is a lovely dark brown but for landscapes I prefer Qor’s Raw Umber. It has more texture and personality with the granulation.
Piemontite Genuine has been great for depth in ground sections of the Australian desert landscapes, but I’d prefer pigment rather than the mineral-based paint. Not sure what I’ll replace this with yet.
Brands I like
My palette is heavily Schmincke based (10 colours), with Mission Gold next (6 colours). Then there are 4 Daniel Smith colours and 1 Art Spectrum.
My Favourite: Schmincke
From the brand's I've tried (and I don't go out of my way to try new ones, preferring to really try to use what I have), my favourite is Schmincke for consistency - they are so reliable everywhere from winters in the south of Australia (and I imagine in even colder places) to the dry, piercing heat of the Central Desserts and the tropics not just of mainland Australia but also Christmas Island, which is much more consistently humid than Darwin and the Kimberley. I honestly don't know if I'd really look elsewhere once I've used up my other colours now that I've tried a few brands unless Schmincke doesn't carry a specific colour.
Mission Gold is a good reliable, controllable brand, if you can get your hands on it at a good price. It is less exciting than something like Qor below, but it is a solid choice especially if you like your watercolours to be a bit more predictable. I’ve done a post about their pure pigment set, which has served me really well for 2 + years.
Qor is a newer to me brand but I love it for how fun it is especially when painting more loosely which is something I've been learning to do for landscapes. Qor’s granulating colours are so fun, and playing with wet in wet techniques with this brand is fascinating. That said, they can also be used in a controlled manner if painting wet on dry or dry on dry. My main issue with some of Qor's colours is that I've had a couple run in my palette in hotter or more humid conditions even after they'd been set. This does happen with some Mission Gold paints too but to a lesser extent. I was a bit disappointed in seeing Qor’s Venetian Red and Cobalt Green smeared across many wells in another palette, and this inconsistency alone will probably mean Qor stays out of my main travel palette.
Daniel Smith's range of colours is impressive, and I've not had issues with the few colours I've tried. I also like that they have stick options for many of their colours. The sticks are economical, they have worked really well for me so far.
However, I've no need for most of their range, their overly flowery descriptions of colours sometimes annoy me (although of course this is not a reason that would deter me if I found a colour I liked).
A more important reason I am sometimes wary of the brand is that I’m just not sure of what is in their mineral range, and in their shimmer colours it seems like the pigment info is not complete. They all list PW 6 and few list anything else in the Jean Haines set I tried, which if you’ve seen the colours in that set, seems very very odd. These colours are not white.
That said I would look to them for more traditional colours and Buff Titanium has found a permanent place on my palette.