Pure Yellow, Magenta & Cobalt Blue Deep limited palette

These are the three tubes of Schmincke watercolour paint I bought during a recent sale on Jackson's Art. I don't usually buy Schmincke because they are generally more expensive than Daniel Smith here in Singapore. On Jackson's Art, Schmincke is cheaper than Daniel Smith. Maybe that's because Schmincke is from Germany and Daniel Smith's from USA and Jackson's Art is based in UK?

The three colours I bought are Pure Yellow (PY154), Magenta (PV42) and Cobalt Blue Deep (PB74.

PY154 is Benzimidazolone yellow, aka Azo Yellow, a lightfast intense yellow. There are many variations of Azo Yellow, such as Daniel Smith Azo Yellow (PY151), DS Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150) and Schmincke Transparent Yellow (PY150).

Shown above at the different mixes possible with those three colours. Schmincke's Cobalt Blue Deep is one of the more granulating colours I've ever seen, matching the version from Kremer Pigments (which is only sold in full pans. It's a lovely colour but it's one of the more expensive blues around.

These three colours work well together. The colours and mixes are very vibrant. Schmincke's quality is undeniably good.

The limitation of this limited palette would be the greens. You can only get warm greens mainly because of Cobalt Blue Deep. But it's a nice green.

Orange and purples are nice.

For darker mixes, a lot of Cobalt Blue Deep has to be used.

The paper I've used here is the Indigo Artpapers 100% cotton coldpress watercolour paper. The paper has very observable texture and works great with granulating paint. That's if you like the extra texture.

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