For Daniel Smith, color is … everything! Extra Fine watercolor pans, beautiful Watercolor Sets make the artists go wild! Color has always been the main reason– to fill your palette with the beauty and the emotion that sets your imagination free!
Create pastel shades with a creamy, semi-opaque/semi-transparent finish by mixing Titanium White with your favorite watercolor pigments. Although not opaque enough for full coverage, this watercolor can be used straight from the tube to add highlights or as a light wash over other colors for a soft veil of light tone. Excellent lightfastness and a smooth finish are hallmarks of this useful pigment.
A fully transparent, non-staining, rich, vivid brown. Elemental and versatile, its granulating properties when blended with Permanent Green changes a sprout to a mature green of tenure and complexity. Used in a low ratio of paint to water in a wash, Transparent Brown Oxide becomes almost peach and can be used as a glaze with a remarkable effect adding shadows rich in depth and mystery.
This clear, dark, red-leaning orange thins into perfectly smooth washes. The color is vivid and warm, lovely used on its own, and great in mixes. Try it with granulating greens or blues to create exquisite earth colors and shadow-grays that are both textural and warm.
A highly transparent burnt orange loves to mingle with the lamp black, settling in beneath it, mixing with it to create tones of cinnamon and tobacco. Fire seems to dance on the walls as its peach undertones nestle in with the black. Incredibly warm and non-staining, you can create stunning effects. Glaze it over the French Ochre for a warm fireside glow or layer it over itself for a rich and glowing red ochre that has no equal.
Ultramarine Blue plots cooler and bluer than the more saturated French Ultramarine. Temperature aside, both blues have equal permanence, lightfastness and transparency. Ultramarine Blue is slightly less granular in concentrated washes. For less saturation, sedimentation and cost, use Ultramarine Blue straight, for vibrant crayon-like color or mixed with a cool red for dark, effective neutrals.
Transparent Ultramarine Turquoise is the granular, low-staining cousin of Phthalo Turquoise. Use it when less stain and more granulation is desired, and consider it for an interesting, non-traditional glaze.
Ultramarine Blue pigment is baked to create Ultramarine Violet. It is an excellent lightfast pigment that flows freely, leaving slight granulation in washes. Ultramarine Violet is also low-staining. Mist damp passages of either pigment for a delightful mottled effect.
An artist’s favorite, this exciting medium to high staining green blends French Ultramarine with Quinacridone Gold. The inorganic, sedimentary French Ultramarine settles and granulates while the organic, transparent Quinacridone Gold floats into a golden halo. Concentrated, this will remind you of warm sea kelp. Apply with Moonglow, Ultramarines and Quinacridone mixtures to color-coordinate and lend atmosphere to various passages. Undersea Green is beautiful touched damp or drybrushed with Interference Gold. Use Undersea green into autumn leaf paintings.
A deep, dark, lightfast mix of siennas and umbers, Van Dyck Brown has a special reticulating property ideal for texturing a wash. Moderate staining and semi-transparent, it works well in place of Sepia.
A true blue, a blue’s blue. Verditer Blue is an historical pigment with a place on every palette. Begin with a dark application, a deep azure lake, and watch how this slightly granulating paint travels quickly in water. Fade to the color of cornflowers and create surprising effects in a wash. Dilute it to the palest baby blue. Enjoy every nuance of this wonderful, semi-transparent watercolor.
Seldom used at full tube strength, this transparent, non-staining pigment is an excellent glazing pigment and a portrait painter’s essential. It’s a cool blue-green useful in mixing without staining other pigment particles and for soft edges in florals. It is the secret hidden ingredient in Moonglow. Viridian can quickly modify reds, and in combination with the Quinacridones, its versatility has multiplied.
Yellow Ochre works especially well with other transparent pigments. Try mixing transparent, medium-tinting Yellow Ochre with equally transparent, medium-tinting Viridian. Somewhat neutral, Yellow Ochre reacts beautifully with Cerulean Blue when spattered into the damp paint. While traditionally Yellow Ochres tend to be opaque or whitened in other brands, DANIEL SMITH Yellow Ochre is transparent, a property beloved by watercolorists!
Found in iron deposits nearly worldwide, Goethite (Brown Ochre) is named after Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the German philosopher, poet and mineralogist. Our unusually pure pigment is mined in Russia, south of Moscow. Rich and warm, DANIEL SMITH Goethite is a dark tea color in masstone and washes out to a rich, warm tan. In washes, it displays intriguing granulation, with pools of light and dark in every brushstroke. Like all colors derived from the earth, it is lightfast and permanent – a lasting connection to the planet and the creative forces of nature.
Sodalite, with a distinctive deep blue color is one of the components of Lapis Lazuli and very rare. DANIEL SMITH Sodalite is the finest quality and deepest blue that comes from Greenland and the flanks of Italy’s Mt. Vesuvius. In watercolor, the inky color of this semi precious stone granulates as it dries, layering a blue-black textural surface on a smooth blue-gray undertone. Low staining, lightfast and semi-tranparent, Sodalite creates a three-dimensional quality as it dries.
This rich dark brown earth pigment is popular with artists due to its semi- or semi-opaque qualities. It is lightfast, low-staining, and can readily be lifted to vary its value in otherwise dark passages. Warm Burnt Umber with a little Alizarin Crimson or cool it with blue as your subject dictates.
Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, a mid- toned, slightly red yellow is perfect to add heat, energy and a focus in any painting. Mixed wet into wet with Cerulean Blue you will have a vast array of textured greens in various tones depending on the color balance and amounts of water, from dusky shadow greens to vibrant spring greens. It disperses beautifully in water for smooth, rich washes.
The craggy peaks of the Cascade Mountains that divide lush, western Washington from the dry, high plains of the east, inspired this unique green. From damp evergreen forests, and alpine meadows to the drier, sunnier open forests, our Cascade Green showcases a million shades of green found in those environments becoming a versatile addition to our artist-preferred greens. As you brush it on, subtle variation from dark to light adds the illusion of depth. Straight from the tube, this rich, mid-range green is cool, dark and mossy. In washes, it has a stunning clarity. In any application, it has excellent lightfastness.
A superb mixing color. Think of Cerulean Blue as a cleaner, brighter, and slightly warmer alternative to the Cerulean Blue Chromium. A bit less green, it’s a truer blue that will be a versatile component of any palette.