Gordon MacKenzie is a northern Ontario artist known for his The Watercolorists’ Essential Notebook series of books. A self-taught author who has spent a lot of time teaching, his books are adapted from his class materials and several of the pages do feel like handouts you might get in class.
The Palette
MacKenzie tends to keep the focus off of himself though his own paintings are used to illustrate various points, he doesn’t talk much about his own preferences. In keeping with that, he doesn’t list his own personal palette, so I will be looking at the example palette he uses to show how to set up a palette in In The Watercolorists’ Essential Notebook. I offer my own “slot” assignment.
He starts by defining a base palette, onto which you are invited to add colors you like.
| Slot | GM Suggested Paint |
|---|---|
| Lemon Yellow | Lemon Yellow or Cadmium Yellow Light |
| Orange-Yellow | Indian Yellow or Cadmium Yellow Deep |
| Scarlet | Scarlet Lake or Cadmium Red |
| Rose | Quinacridone Rose |
| Violet-Blue | Ultramarine Blue |
| Middle Blue | Cobalt Blue |
| Cyan | Phthalo Blue, Prussian Blue, or Cerulean Blue |
in The Watercolorists’ Essential Notebook: Landscapes, his example palette includes the base palette above with some landscape-oriented add-ons.
| Slot | GM Suggested Color |
|---|---|
| Violet | Thoindigo Violet [now discontinued] |
| Dark Blue | Indigo |
| Green (Cool) | Phthalo Green or Viridian |
| Green (Warm) | Sap Green, Hooker’s Green, or Chromium Oxide Green |
| Earth Yellow | Raw Sienna |
| Earth Orange | Burnt Sienna |
Mackzenie is not didactic about what colors to add; these are merely ones he vouches for, alongside a chart showing which brands offer which colors (certainly out of date by now, as I’m looking at a library book from 2000) and which colors are fugitive or otherwise not recommended. As you can see, he tends to suggest options for a slot rather than a specific color.
My completely subjective thoughts
Overall I think it’s fairly strong guidance, with some very solid colors recommended. These include some of my workhorses, or at least the option for them.
You’ll notice the base palette is a split primary palette, with an unexplained extra blue. The extra blue is Cobalt Blue, which I like, but I do think it’s a little similar to Ultramarine to justify its presence on such a small palette. For a greater range of values, I would probably suggest either kicking either Cobalt or Ultramarine for a darker blue. I also think Scarlet Lake was added just to make the split primary palette work. In a limited palette, I’d add earth orange for mixing browns before I added a scarlet.
The add-ons add a lot – you get your dark blue, earth orange, and an earth yellow in there. There is also the addition of some secondary colors. I guess because it is a landscape palette, it makes sense that there are multiple greens added, but I kind of feel like two were added to make the cool/warm dichotomy work more than because they’re really both needed. Sap and Hooker’s Green are usually commercial mixes containing PG7. You could just add a gold and mix them yourself.
Thoindigo Violet (PR88) is all but discontinued now. I have only every encountered it in a mix from Da Vinci, where it is mixed with Quinacridone Violet (PV19). I’m not sure how much PR88 is in the mix, but the resulting mix looks just like Quinacridone Violet. So that is probably the color I would suggest as a replacement. That said, I don’t usually use a violet, and I’m not sure what it adds to landscape specifically unless it’s your signature favorite color. I’d probably call this a “bonus slot” and put whatever you want in it.
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The Complete Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook by Gordon MacKenzie
The Watercolorist’s Essential Notebook: Landscapes by Gordon MacKenzie