A lot of watercolor painters who know about pigments prefer single pigment colors. At least that’s what I’ve heard and seen. I am here for all the colors, not only the pigments. I love to swatch them and to paint with them! Let me convince you with this article that convenience colors can be as useful as single pigment colors. And maybe even a little bit more fun!
Why convenience colors
Artist pigments cover a lot of colors. They come in different hues, chromas and values. But they don’t cover the whole range, the whole color wheel. That’s why we usually mix colors when we paint. But what if you could buy a gorgeous color and use it right away? That’s easy and can be a lot of fun, too.
In my recent article about the Holbein watermelon set I mentioned that watermelon green has a lot more depth than any other color I can mix with fewer pigments. That’s what I see with many convenience colors. It’s just another reason why I love them.
How to use convenience colors
Convenience colors have the usual properties such as lightfastness, staining, transparency and tinting strength. It all comes together from the included pigments. For example: if one of the pigments of a purple is a non-lightfast red, the color will most likely fade to a bluer color. Or if some pigments of a color are very staining and the others are not, the staining pigment will be more visible when you rub away the color.
But the most fun property of convenience colors, in my opinion, is granulation. When you put a granulating pigment in a mix, it usually separates from the other pigments, even if these other pigments are also granulating. When using lots of water, the separation is even more visible. Personally, I love that effect!
But of course you can use convenience colors like every single pigment color. You can paint with them! And you can mix them, too. Many convenience mixes are not very high chroma (there are exceptions), because that’s the nature of mixing pigments. If you mix two high chroma pigments, you’ll get a mixed color that has less chroma. But many single pigment colors are low chroma too. Overall it’s even possible to find complementary mixes with convenience colors.
My floral palette
As you’ve seen in the title, I want to introduce my floral palette. It’s a palette with 41 colors. 29 of them are convenience colors. I don’t intend to mix a lot with these colors. It’s all the fun colors that I like for florals: mostly muted and a lot of my favorite colors, many muted reds in different nuances and with different properties. Most of the convenience colors are separating colors. My goal with this palette is to concentrate on painting (and learning) florals and care less about mixing. I want to grab a color and don’t want to think more about that.
Don’t get me wrong – on other occasions I love mixing and choosing colors for mixing. And I love to put together a limited palette intended for mixing, such as my travel palette (A review of my Corsica travel palette ). But it’s okay to have different mindsets when painting different things.
Conclusion
You can use convenience colors just as any other watercolor too. Learn their properties (as with every other color too) and you’ll be fine. But you can also choose to use them as they are and use them without mixing. Sometimes it’s just nice to choose the easy way. The most important thing is to have fun. I am certainly having fun with all of the gorgeous convenience colors!
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