Emma Lefebvre is a popular social media watercolor teacher with a cheerful, illustrative style. She specializes in loose florals and cute paintings of food, such as cupcakes. I found her book, Watercolor Lessons, to be a fun, eye-catching intro that raises excitement about watercolor without bogging the reader down with too much technical detail. It would appeal to the beginner who is drawn to simplicity, color, illustration, and a bold, modern aesthetic.
So what colors does Lefebvre recommend?
In the book, she reveals her own palette of 28 colors, which she acknowledges are too many for a beginner to start with. She limits herself to half of those, a total of 14, for the actual tutorials. Below, I show her full palette; I’ve starred the ones used in the tutorials.
Notes:
- It appears Winsor & Newton is a common brand for her to use, so I’ve assumed that brand by default.
- In my paintout, I had shockingly few of these available to me, so a lot of them are substitutions or self-mixes. Hopefully it’s close enough to get the idea.
My Thoughts
- Want an even smaller subset? The 7 most used in the tutorials are Cadmium Yellow, Permanent Rose, Phthalo Turquoise, Sap Green, Perylene Green, Burnt Umber, and Lamp Black.
- Lots of reds/pinks and lots of greens! This makes sense given Lefebvre’s love of botanicals.
- Lefebvre shows a strong preference for transparent, smooth colors. Only a handful are opaque (Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Orange, Cobalt Turquoise, Lamp Black). Only French Ultramarine is granulating.
- This is a palette optimized for convenience over flexibility. This is most apparent to me with the greens. In WN, Sap Green and Hooker’s Green are both made from the same two pigments: Isoindolinone Yellow (PY110) and Phthalo Green YS (PG36). Sap Green has more of the yellow, while Hooker’s Green has more of the phthalo green. Personally my preference would be to use those two slots for the PY110 and PG36, and make my own mixes of the two, which is more flexible and allows me to do more dramatic color shifts. But in a more illustrative style with more bold color blocks, perhaps it makes more sense to select the convenient color you’re always mixing.
- Some of the tutorials mention “Hooker’s Green” while others mention “Hooker’s Green Dark,” which is another WN color using PY110 and PG36, but which is not officially listed in the extended or tutorial palette. Perhaps she changed her mind about which one to use. I would imagine you can simply substitute one for the other. To make your Hooker’s Green a little darker, try adding a little red.
- I think of myself as having a lot of paint, but I had very few of these on hand. Of the 28, only six are in my personal palette (PV19 rose, Perylene Maroon, Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Turquoise, Phthalo Turquoise, and Ultramarine (but not French)). Five more are in my seasonal/occasional use collection (Lemon Yellow, Quin Magenta, Perylene Violet, Phthalo Blue GS, and Payne’s Gray). Four were actually rescued from my “possible giveaway” box (Yellow Ochre, Opera Rose, Perm Alizarin Crimson, Dioxazine Violet). I cobbled together a few from dots from friends (thanks guys!) The rest were substituted (e.g. PY97 for Cadmium Yellow), or I mixed an approximation.
- Some colors I miss include my core earth trio of Indanthrone Blue, MANS, and Transparent Red Oxide. In this palette, one might use Indigo, WN Payne’s Gray (which is bluish), or Ultramarine to take the place of Indanthrone Blue, and Yellow Ochre in place of MANS. But there is no earth orange at all, which I initially found surprising, but which I suppose is more useful to a landscape painter than a botanic painter.
- I’d also miss Nickel Azo Yellow, Rich Green Gold, and/or Quin Gold, which are great green mixers, if you’re a person who wants to mix your own greens.