Triadvent Day 1!: MANS, Perylene Maroon, Payne’s Gray

I found a cool pun! This year for advent season (December 1-24), I will be exploring randomized triads in an event that I call “Triadvent.”

About the challenge

Why an advent challenge?

Advent is perhaps an oddly religious season in which to be doing a painting challenge, but it all comes from the marketing of advent calendars, which have expanded from a little set of chocolates for children to elaborate mystery boxes for adults – especially in the art supplies world, in which you can sign up for paint advent calendars, ink advent calendars, marker advent calendars, mixed art supplies advent calendars, and more. Last year in December, my Discord buddies realized we were tempted by these products but also struggled to justify getting a bunch of new random items when we already had underused stash. To save ourselves, we put together DIY advent calendars. We chose items from our existing art supplies stash that we hadn’t used enough or wanted to explore more, and randomized them for a surprise effect. In my case, I wrapped them, and opened one per day. It was fun and festive!

Why Triadvent?

This year, I chose the theme of “Triadvent” mostly because it’s a good portmanteau, but also because I wanted to do a new random challenge, and I realized that I have only one more month to realize my 2025 year goal of “more triads”! Sure, I largely abandoned triads as a color structure for an actual painting, but they’re still fun as a randomized exercise, a la Katie Woodward’s “Mystery Palette Monday”. Like the DIY Advent Calendar, triad exercises help you to get to know an underused paint or perhaps suggest new ways to pair paints together.

How will it work?

Each day I will randomly select three paints. I will paint a color wheel and a tiny scene to show off the triad. I will attempt to post roughly daily this month with the day’s triad. I still have some regular articles I want to post this month, so I may post multiple times or do a catchup with multiple triads or occasionally skip I triad day, I’ll see how I feel.

Randomization Notes

I like a tactile randomization (not via computer), so like Katie Woodward, I divided my paint tubes into three bags: red, yellow, and blue. Secondary colors and earth colors are rounded to the nearest primary (e.g. earth orange = red, green = blue). The only color I didn’t include is white. I will choose one paint from each bag each day.

Only tubes are eligible (not pans) because tubes are easier to mix up in a bag. There are still some limitations to the randomization (I only have clear bags, I have a mix of small and large tubes that are different levels of fullness), but I will do my best to choose completely randomly, not looking or feeling for a specific paint.

I’ve also decided to not replace the paints after I use them, after realizing I almost have enough paint to do a complete different triad each day. I have 21 reds, 19 yellows, and 17 blues, so I will either do this for 17 days or I’ll extend by refreshing after day 17.

Today’s Triad: Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Perylene Maroon, Payne’s Gray

Proof of my commitment to randomization ought to come from today’s triad which is never what I would have picked, especially for the first day. It’s so muted! One expects a randomized palette to be completely off the wall – say, Lemon Yellow, Venetian Red, Leaf Green – but the Triadvent Gods wanted me to paint muted today. I selected:

• Daniel Smith – Monte Amiata Natural Sienna (PBr7), aka MANS
• Holbein – Perylene Maroon (PR179)
• Holbein – Payne’s Gray (PB15, PR122, PBk6)

My reference photo was “Swamp Tree” by Jule on Paint-My-Photo.

Holbein Payne’s Gray was miserable as a blue because it’s not blue at all; it’s mostly just black. Some Payne’s Grays, like WN, are navy blue, but this one’s so neutral. In the color wheel, I didn’t see any green at all. I was shocked that in the painting itself, the mix of MANS and Payne’s Gray really does read as a muted green in comparison to the red grasses and gray sky.

Mixing all three paints gives absolutely gorgeous browns.

Because of the nature of this tube challenge, I’m using tube-fresh paint. Using MANS fresh from the tube is a joy. I’ve been a bit off it lately because it’s hard to rewet and shrivels in the pan, but here I remembered why I love it.