The unknown sister

Last Monday something VERY exciting happened. For the first time I met one of my YouTube followers in real life! Caroline visited our country and proposed to meet…which we did! We and our husbands spent an unexpected marvelous afternoon in the sun, on a terrace. It was so cool, it was as if I met the sister I never knew I had. Unbelievable how alike we were! As her husband later put it: “Twin sisters from different mothers, living in different countries!”

Sisterly love for paint and colors

Our husbands watched our shreeks of recognition with amusement, although I did feel for them a bit. It must be weird, sitting with two women who get absolutely over the moon talking about colors and paint. We made a trade…Caroline had brought me Daniel Smith yummies and I had filled a pretty palette of Old Holland blues for her… What more can you wish for? Great company AND great paint!!!

Daniel Smith color wheel

I had collected some Daniel Smith paints in the past months already, aiming to make some more study of pigments. I so enjoyed the triads I recently made that I decided to do a big color wheel. Even though it seemed easy, it wasn’t as easy as I’d thought. Turns out the red and yellow pigments were that much stronger than the blues that in mixing the gradients starting from blue weren’t blue enough to my liking. The wheel should have changed hues more gradiently…but here’s my inner perfectionist nagging. Because it’s downright beautiful anyway. And I love how it offers such fantastic insight into the color mixes that are possible with the six colors I’ve used.

My six colors

The colors I’ve used for this color wheel are all Daniel Smith: Hansa yellow light, Nickel azo yellow, Pyrrol scarlet, Permanent alizarin Crimson, Manganese blue hue and Phthalo blue (RS). I randomly picked a warm and cool of yellow, red and blue and purposely didn’t check which would best together for optimal result. I find that sometimes when you mix colors together that are not a perfect match, you end up getting the most surprising colors. The image above does not show the slight varieties in colors that the wheel really has. Scanners will only pick up that much, eh?

You can find a color wheel template a little further down this blog post ♥

Loyalty discount on upcoming class

Also I’ve been meaning to share with you the upcoming online class I’m working on “Mirror, mirror…”. It is an inspiring art  or art journaling class in which storybuilding is combined with gouache and mixed media techniques. It will air on 1 May. Instead of doing a pre-sale discount, I have decided to go for a loyalty discount. Newsletter readers and previous students of mine will find a 15% discount code in their newsletter. Simply because I love having you here! You don’t read my newsletter yet? No worries. You can sign up right here ♥

Color wheel instructions

If you’re looking to do a similar color wheel, Jane Blundell offers a wonderful template for making it on her website (which also offers a huge insight into the composition of the best possible palette of watercolors, by the way). For those who are working with Artist grade watercolor paint or who want to start doing so, Jane’s website really is worth a look if you want to learn more about the pigments you’re using.