Brienne M. Brown is a watercolor landscape artist from Pennsylvania. She has private class subscription called Traveling Colors Studio and a free Youtube channel.
Brienne Brown’s Palette
I will use Brown’s website supplies list as her canonical palette list. Because she is a Michael Harding brand ambassador, there are many Michael Harding options (MH).
As usual, you can click on the color name to see my Color Spotlight if any for the same pigment, or the slot for suggestions of replacement colors. I reordered her list to my preferred order.
| BB Uses | My Slot |
|---|---|
| Holbein – Permanent Yellow Lemon (PY3, PY74) or MH – Bright Yellow Lake (PY3) | Lemon Yellow or Middle Yellow |
| MH – Brilliant Orange (PO62) | Orange |
| MH – Pyrrole Red (PR254) | Red or Crimson |
| MH – Quinacridone Rose (PV19) | Magenta, Pink, or Rose |
| DS – Carbazole Violet (PV23) | Violet |
| MH – Ultramarine Blue (PB29) | Violet Blue |
| MH – Cobalt Blue (PB28) | True Blue |
| MH – Cobalt Turquoise Deep (PB36) | Cyan |
| DS – Sap Green | Green |
| DS – Transparent Yellow Oxide (PY42) | Earth Yellow |
| DS – Transparent Red Oxide (PR101) | Earth Orange |
| Payne’s Gray (monochrome only) | Black or Gray |
| white gouache | White |
She also sets aside a few pastels used only as “accent colors.”
[Accent colors] are opaque watercolors that I love to splatter on a wet wash. Lavender is my favorite. It makes the most beautiful greys.
Brienne Brown, “My Palette 1”
| BB Uses (Accent Only) | My Slot |
|---|---|
| DS – Cobalt Teal Blue (PG50) | Cyan |
| Holbein – Horizon Blue or MH – Vivid Blue | Cyan |
| Holbein – Lilac | Violet |
| Holbein – Lavender | Violet |
In the image above, I tried to roughly match the colors using paints I had on hand from different brands and the Da Vinci dot card. Quin Rose is actually DS Quin Red, so is redder than the one Brown uses.
I found two old blog posts in which Brown discusses her palette (one, two); since they are from 2014, I have to assume she’s moved on from some of these colors. Still, watching her videos, which are quite a bit more recent, she seems to have the same overall approach. In 2014 she wrote,
Probably my favorite color combination to start with is:
1. Cobalt Blue
2. Transparent Red Oxide
3. Quinacridone Rose
4. Transparent Yellow Oxide
I can do an entire painting with these colors.
Brienne Brown, “My Palette 2”
True to form, in her videos, Brown often seems to have a large palette box open, but she typically begins color paintings with tints of the same three primaries: Cobalt Blue, Transparent Yellow Oxide, and Quinacridone Rose. This triad reminds me of a bit of Poppy Balser who also leaned on Cobalt Blue, Quin Rose, and a light earth yellow as her main primary triad. Brown uses the other colors to slightly modify her colors one way or another, such as adding a little orange to warm up the yellow, or a little Lavender into the Cobalt Blue for the sky.
More lessons from Brienne Brown’s tutorials
Like many experienced artists, Brown starts on dry paper but with very watery washes (“tea” in the tea/coffee/milk/cream/butter scale). She uses a lightly angled backboard, so a bead of water forms at the edge of the wash. She works her way down from the top of the page, the bead giving her a few moments to work on her mixes between each color. This first layer sets the overall color shifts for the entire composition.
I was shocked by how she left nothing white on a winter snow scene, and appeared to paint the snow a rather mid-value purple-gray.
But just as she promised, light-wash grays appeared white when the rest of the painting was filled in.
If she wants soft edges on the next layer, she’s able to come back in and begin adding it while the previous wash are still damp because she is using thicker paint on each successive layer. Well, it works better when she does it. I had water control issues. Practice!