What is in our paints? This blog post will inform you on what is in your paints, why they are there, and how they will impact your art. You will also find out how professional and student grade paints differ.
Learn how to make swatch cards, use them efficiently, and sort out all your paints!
This month, I had a (virtual) sit-down with Marc (the founder), to learn more about how other paintmakers find their business. So sit down with a cup of tea, grab your favourite snack, and enjoy!
Owning a small art business is not easy. As many of you know, there are far too many factors outside your control, particularly when times are hard economically. However, there are also so many incredible highs. Being able to set out my day does wonders for my health, and I
This guide has been made to help you gather up all your supplies, buy anything to plug in the gaps, and step out into the wild to paint the world.
Grab a cup of tea and enjoy this interview with Carrie Rogers on nature journaling, her favourite supplies, and more!
Learn about the differences between colourants in paint; pigments, dyes, and lakes.
This post will talk about the use of the colour in watercolour; how it compares between commercial and handmade brands, mixes it excels in, and viable alternatives, should you decide that you would rather use a different pigment.
This is the second collaboration palette I have done, this time with Ilsea.art. Ilse is an artist who is known for her use of bright colours, harmonious mixes, and a stunning ‘candy’ series (see below). I fell in love with her art the moment I saw it, and I was thrilled when she agreed to become an ambassador for my brand, and collaborate on a palette with me. When starting to design this palette, Ilse wanted to “fill all the needs of an artist’s basic palette, ground(ing it) in colour theory”. We both are true pigment nerds, and did thorough research into the pigments, ensuring that the palette was made up of trustworthy, non-toxic, lightfast pigments. This truly is a natural starting point for mixing all the colours you could imagine! I have been painting exclusively with this palette over the last month or so, and when it comes to your standard colours, you have everything you need! Benzimidazalone Yellow, PY154 This is the perfect midtone yellow; bright and cheerful, without being too blinding, or leaning too orange or green. It’s a lovely hue to use on its own, as well as mixing, for vibrant oranges, greens, or midtones. You can neutralise it by using a mix of quin magenta and phthalo turquoise. Pyrrole Scarlet Pyrrole Scarlet is my favourite warm red, however Ilse had never tried it. It was love at first swatch though, and she felt that once she’d tried it, she /had/ to have it in the palette. This beautiful warm red fills in the gaps that mixes with quin magenta cannot make, giving us warm peaches, and standing out as a red on its own back. This colour mixes perfectly with phthalo turquoise to give moody teals, and clear neutrals. Quinacrhttps://khannahshoneyhues.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Handmade-Kid-Shop-Costumes-archive-1.jpge Magenta, PR122 Ilse chose this quinacrhttps://khannahshoneyhues.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Handmade-Kid-Shop-Costumes-archive-1.jpge, as opposed to its PV19 cousins, as it is a perfect “true” magenta. From this colour you can make muted oranges, rich, vibrant purples, and even some gorgeous moody greens and purples, when mixed with leaf green. Phthalo Turquoise Phthalo turquoise is a common love between Ilse and I; it is an in disposable colour in our palettes. It’s green bias omits the need for a phthalo green in our palette, and it is a stunning hue in its own right. Both pyrrole Scarlet and azo russet neutralise beautifully with this colour, giving a range of dark tones for the palette that are not apparent when looking at the base colours. Leaf Green This was the colour we struggled on for the longest; Ilse wanted to balance out the set with a convenience green, however we didn’t want to follow the ‘traditional’ route and go with a sap colour. The result is a beautiful rich, vibrant green, that works well on its own, and in mixes. It is easily turned into vibrant greens or teals by adding BY or PT respectively, and mixing it with azo russet gives us stunning earthy greens, suitable for nature painting. Azo Russet The piece de resistance is Azo Russet; this colour truly fills all your earth tone needs. It makes beautiful ochre tones when mixed with yellow, more muted raw umber if you add some turquoise to that mix, and rich earthy purples when mixed with quinacrhttps://khannahshoneyhues.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Handmade-Kid-Shop-Costumes-archive-1.jpge magenta. I urge you to see all that this colour can do for you!! As hinted throughout our work, this palette truly comes into its own when you consider its mixing potential. To date, I have been able to make every colour I desire, from bright vivid oranges to muted earthy teals, and everything in between. I am a portraiture artist predominately, and I have had no issues in creating skin tones for any ethnicity. One of my other ambassadors, Carrie, is a nature journalist, and likewise, she has been able to use this palette exclusively, to create a range of images. And Maja, my newest ambassador, has created this beautiful flower, again with The Essentials Palette and a green mica. What are your favourite mixes in this set? Have you bought it? If so, what subjects do you plan to paint with it? Khannah x
Tl;dr – this is the first collaboration palette of KHH, with the nature artist Carrie Rogers Art. We worked together to design the perfect palette for her, and… here it is! This has been the work of three months discussing colours, making and sending paints and exploring colour mixing. And I’ve loved every second of it. Carrie Rogers had a very clear vision in her head when starting out concepting for this palette: the woodlands behind her home in the spring, when the bluebells and other flowers begin to bloom. When she broached the subject to me, I instantly fell on love with the challenge. Detailed below are the eight colours, and why they were chosen. Sepia. This is the warm neutral of the palette – it’s like the earth. This colour is perfect for shadows and other such items, and will add texture and depth to your pieces. Caput Mortuum. For this colour ,Carrie wanted a clay-like colour with deep dark tones and a versatile mixing component. She loves caput mortuum as a colour by itself too; it’s nice and rich and reminds her of the earth! Faun Ochre. This is the muted yellow tone for the palette. It’s a fabulous mixer, and we both love it so much. For Carrie, it was a colour she could use for barks and lichens, however it can also be mixed with buff titanium to make lovely mushroomy tones. It’s also an excellent mixer with evenfall moss to make a huge range of greens!! Evenfall Moss. This was originally a patreon-exclusive colour, but after Carrie saw it on my page she begged me for a sample. And the rest was history! It became part of my normal range, and Carrie decided it was a must for her palette. It’s a beautiful deep earthy green that reminds her of the mosses and algae that you find on the forest floor. Indigo Hue. Whilst Carrie doesn’t often use blues in her work (it’s one of the lesser seen colours in nature), she wanted to include one in the palette to balance it out, and indigo hue is dark enough to make her happy, but also have a lot of mixing potential! Mix this colour with evenfall moss and buff titanium and see one of Carrie’s top ten favourite mixes!! Damson. Carrie wanted to include in her palette a colour that would mix well with the others, but also make pinks/dusky hues without needing to include an actual pink. If you try to mix damson with caput mortuum, you’ll get a really lovely soft burgundy! She might have also chosen this colour to paint one specific mushroom; the wood blewit. Mix damson with buff titanium and you get the perfect shade. Buff Titanium There are lots of things in nature that are pale, but not simply in the transparent way watercolours provide; this is where buff titanium comes in. It’s creamy hue adds warmth to any colour it mixes with, and it also shines on its own! Buff Titanium is one of Carrie’s “necessity colours” – she can’t remember the last time that she didn’t use it! Neutral Tint. This is quite literally the only essential colour I would have in a palette, and Carrie agrees, it being the other of her two necessessity colours. She uses it in almost all of her paintings as afor the shadows, as it darkens other colours without taking away the colour – exactly as a neutral tint should! Carrie totally doesn’t have three pans of this colour. Nope. Not at all. This palette was, to put it simply, a dream to make. Carrie was wonderful to work with, and we regularly exchanged happy mail, as well as swatches of potential colours so that we could match the paints made exactly to her vision. Each of the limited edition palettes are in old cigar tins that Carrie found – they fit the vibe of the palette perfectly, in my opinion! There will also be some complete collections available, and if there is enough interest, I will offer singles of some colours. I can’t tell you all the details yet, but in 2021 we are doing another, even bigger, collaboration! I’d love to know what you all think of the colours on offer – which would you like to try? What would you paint with this palette? Khannah
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