Kazuo Kasai is one of my favorite contemporary watercolor artists to follow on Instagram (before I left Instagram), and he has amazing timelapse videos on Youtube. Even accounting for the sped-up video, he paints so fast, slapping down paint as if at random, yet it all comes together. I love his fresh, bold color and the way his paintings are so intensely seasonal: spring bursting with blossoms; summer full of sunlight and greenery; autumn exploding with fall color; and winter cold and serene. 

I poked around online for awhile trying to find his palette, but mostly couldn’t find anything from my English language searches for things like “kazuo kasai palette” or “kazuo kasai colors.” I noted that Kasai has written a book, 水彩風景 シーン別でわかる手順百科 基本からプロの秘密のテクニックまで (Watercolor Landscapes: Encyclopedia of Procedures to Understand Scenery), which I’d love to get my hands on, though I suppose it would be of limited usefulness since I don’t read Japanese.

Eventually I made a breakthrough finding his blog! It’s also in Japanese, but with Google translate, I think I’ve gotten the main idea of some of the posts. I was initially looking for a palette post, but I got distracted from that quest by the rest of the content: he has a ton of useful information and tips. Here are my favorite concepts.

Lessons from Kazuo Kasai’s Blog

(I’ve paraphrased these based on my understanding of a Google translated blog, so there’s room for things to be lost in translation here.)

Order of Operations

Generally, Kasai divides the painting process into three steps/layers:

1. First layer: Wash. This is a big, blurry wet-on-wet layer where you block in the major areas of light or bright color. I’ve noticed in the timelapse videos that he also leaves white any area that is going to require careful painting later, such as small, penciled-in people. Typically, he just paints around them.
2. Second layer: Mid-tones. This appears to be a wet-on-dry layer although it’s a bold, devil-may-care one. This is where any paint splatter is applied (including masking fluid splatter to preserve lights e.g. cherry blossoms.) 
3. Final layer: Crisp details, wet-on-dry. This is also where you can put in the darkest shadows. This layer brings the scene into focus. You don’t need to bring everything into focus – some parts can be left blurry. 

Put color down once, and leave it.

The key to Kasai’s fresh, bold color is to paint the first and middle layers quickly, recklessly, with minimal strokes, “so that you can feel it without explaining it too much.” Another way to put it is to be lazy.  

He rejects the traditional advice to “paint light to dark,” feeling that this leads to students painting the same layer over and over again and losing that spontaneity. Students often prefer their color tests pages to their final paintings, and it’s because of that fresh, bold, confident, single-layer color. 

Don’t just paint what you see: interpret.

Kasai thinks it’s boring to just paint exactly what’s in front of you. This includes simplifying the scene to just what interests you, and applying your emotion to the scene. You can make good art without technical skill; it’s more important to communicate your feelings. Passion and imagination are more important than technique. 

You don’t have to go somewhere beautiful.

Although the beauty of his natural subjects is part of what I like about Kasai, he says that he himself likes art that makes the ordinary into something beautiful. When encouraging readers to paint outside, he stresses you don’t need to travel, or go anywhere special; you can paint the light filtering through trees by a roadside, or rain on a car window. 

Pay attention to the “path of light.”

I’ve noticed the tendency of watercolor artists (including Kasai) to paint literal paths in their paintings (a form of leading lines and storytelling); Kasai also points out that light itself can form a path for the same purpose. 

Look for color in shadows.

Shadows aren’t gray, they’re all sorts of colors! Using Payne’s Gray or Indigo to make shadow colors can be a crutch. If you label a color a “shadow” and default to your gray, you can stop thinking miss the actual, more interesting color(s).

Go ahead and mix 3+ pigments.

Kasai doesn’t believe the conventional wisdom that mixing three or more pigments “mixes mud.” It’s important to understand how different colors work when mixed together, but plenty of beautiful mixes come from three or more pigments. 

You don’t need green paint to paint green. 

Kasai mixes landscape greenery from his selection of blues and yellows. He has Phthalo Green, but it’s only for neutralizing red. He avoids pre-mixed greens, like Sap Green, because the exact shade of green for any given place, time, and season will vary. 

Kazuo Kasai’s Palette

So, after all that, did I end up finding his palette?

Yes! In a 2021 post, he describes his current palette (at the time), while noting that he switches it up often.

As usual, “Color Slot” gives a link to other colors I would categorize in the same palette slot, and specific color names link to my Color Spotlights for them. 

Color Slot	Kazuo Kasai Has (all Schmincke Horadam)
Gold	Transparent Yellow (PY150) [also known as Nickel Azo Yellow]
Orange-Yellow	Cadmium Yellow Deep (PY35, PO20)
Orange	Transparent Orange (PO71)
Scarlet	Cadmium Red Light (PR108) [previously Cadmium Red Orange PO20 in 2018]
Red	Scarlet Red (PR254) [also known as Pyrrol Red]
Magenta	Purple Magenta (PR122)  [also known as Quin Magenta]
Violet-Blue	French Ultramarine (PB29) [previously Ult. Finest or Cobalt Blue Deep (PB74) in 2018]
Dark Blue	Delft Blue (PB60) [also known as Indanthrone Blue]
Cyan	Helio Turquoise (PB16)
Turquoise	Cobalt Turquoise (PG50)
Turquoise, Muted	Cobalt Green Turquoise (PB36)
Green	Phthalo Green (PG7)
Earth Yellow	Raw Sienna (PBr7, PY43)
Earth Yellow, Peach	Naples Yellow Reddish (PW6, PW4, PR242, PY42)
Brown	Burnt Umber (PBr7) [formerly English Venetian Red (PR101 in 2019]
Earth Red	Indian Red (PR101, PR206)

I have to say, I was pretty wrong about which colors he had based on simply watching his videos. In the videos, you see the mixed color going down on the paper, but you don’t see his palette or watch him mix it, so it’s easy to mistake the mixed colors for colors that look more similar to the end state.

• What I took to be Rich Green Gold (PY129) was probably a mix of Transparent Yellow and a blue or turquoise. (In one post, shares his favorite mix for bright green: Transparent Yellow and Cobalt Turquoise! He notes that he does not use Phthalo Green for green leaves; it’s just for muting reds and mixing neutrals.)
• What I took to be Perylene Green (PBk31) was another mix, likely something like Delft Blue and Transparent Yellow.
• I expected his paint to be all transparent because his work looks so transparent, but actually about half of his paints are opaque. Still, the transparent colors are crucial ones that are used in a lot of mixes and for capturing light, especially Transparent Yellow. 
• Interestingly, he uses Transparent Yellow as his main yellow, and does not have a typical lemon or bold yellow.

Conclusion

Kasai has a ton of great stuff on his blog, even with rudimentary translation. I’d love to see a real translation of some of his books and other work!