My Palette as of January 1st 2026

To end the year, I:

• Replaced one blue for another
• Figured out how to mix greens from blue and yellow to replace the premixed greens I had in my palette (Sap Green and Undersea Green)
• Reviewed the greens and turquoises I could make with the newly added Phthalo Green.
• Reshuffled my palette so that my colours were in triad groups.

Refining my Watercolour Palette

Last year I spent a lot of time refining my watercolour palette. I worked with Jane Blundell and leveraged her expertise on creating an ultimate mixing palette of colours. I decided to keep a static selection of colours beginning in 2026, so I spent the last couple of months of last year, refining my colour selection.

My Palette as of January 1st 2026

Most of these are Daniel Smith, but there’s a few Winsor Newton Professional watercolours in there too.

Replacing Indigo Blue with Cobalt Blue

Since I set my watercolour palette in October, I’ve taken the Indigo Blue out of my palette, because I just wasn’t using it, and have replaced it with Colbalt Blue.

I mainly use blues for the sky and have defaulted to Manganese Blue Hue instead of Cerulean Blue, because it’s a brighter cool blue. But I wanted the option of a bit of variation for my skies, so decided to give Cobalt Blue a try.

It’s cooler than French Ultramarine, so great when you want your skies to recede into the background.

It seems like a lot of urban sketchers either opt for French Ultra Marine, Ultra Marine, or Colbalt Blue as their main blue shade. I’m a big fan of French Ultra Marine, I’d say I was loyal to it! It came in the Daniel Smith Essentials set, so I stuck with it.

Blues in my Watercolour Palette

Here’s the selection of five blues I have in my current urban sketching palette:

Cobalt Blue, Phthalo Blue Green Shade, French Ultramarine, Manganese Blue Hue, and Cobalt Turquoise Light.

I like the granulation you get with the French Ultramarine, and I think this is because it has a larger particle size to ultramarine.

Liz Steel prefers Ultramarine to French Ultramarine, because she says it creates better greens. I guess it’s all just personal choice.

Mixing Greens with French Ultramarine

Since taking out my premixed greens – Sap Green and Undersea Green – I’ve been experimenting with the blue and yellow combinations in my palette. I was basically looking for a quick and simple alternative to these two premixed greens, with the minimum amount of fussing.

I settled on three variations of mixing different quantities of French Ultramarine and Hansa Yellow Medium.

• A Yellow-Green that will work for the areas of trees and foliages dappled by the sun,
• A bright and vibrant replacement Sap Green for my mid-green tones
• A rich undersea green replacement for my darker tones

I like that all of these are created from variations of the same two shades, so that they’ll be a cohesiveness in my foliage. Plus if I use enough water in my mixes, the French Ultramarine with create some lovely granulation in dense foliage.

I don’t paint a lot of foliage, but I definitely need a set of go-to greens that I know I can create consistently.

Phthalo Green (blue shade)

When I took out those premixed greens, I replaced them with Phthalo Green (blue shade). Jane Blundell had explained that it was a great mixing green.

Explore phthalo green mixed with your new gamboge (or burnt sienna and manganese blue) for sap like greens, and try Indian red with phthalo green for pine greens. (Jane Blundell)

The Indian Red and Phthalo Green does create a nice Pine Green, but as I don’t paint many pine trees, I’m not sure if I’m going to use this mixing green very much. But maybe for some dark green clothing on my people sketches?

I thought I’d give Phthalo Green (blue shade) a try for the year, and if it doesn’t get much use, I’ll just kick it to the curb! 🙂 But now that we’ve reached the new year, I’m not going to mess with my colour selection again for the rest of the year.

Vibrant Blues for Ocean Shades from Phthalo Green

Here’s some mixes of vibrant blues and greens that have all been created from Phthalo Green (blue shade). I’m more likely to use this green to make the vibrant blues than I am to explore the greens.

I like all three of the blue shades created by mixing Phthalo Green with Cobalt Turquoise Light (a bright Caribbean blue), and the two blue-green shades created from the French Ultramarine mix, and the Colbalt Blue mix. These will all be really useful when painting seascapes.