The #onlyTHREEpigments Artist Challenge
Greetings! I was inspired to start a community tag recently, and a topic that jumped out at me first was a desert-island scenario. One of those hypothetical “if you could only have X, what would it be?” challenges.
If you could only use three pigments for the rest of your life, what would they be and why?
This was actually a really hard question to ask myself, especially once I was deep into the decision making process. One of the picks immediately came to me, but then the challenge got real from there.
What pigment characteristics are most important to me?
I’m no stranger to making limited palettes, or even using triads to paint whole illustrations. When faced with this challenge though, I had to consider what trio would benefit me the most over time. What colour range would fit the subjects and styles I paint in, and what pigment characteristics would benefit me the most for those too?
The most obvious choice for breadth of mixing would be a cyan, magenta, yellow trio. It would offer the widest range of secondary hues, without any of them being overly muted. I could have punchy oranges, vibrant greens, and luscious purples. Fit for any subject that could be thrown at me. While this was tempting, something held me back from immediately picking the obvious option.
I don’t often reach for hyper-bright secondaries when I paint, and tend to mute down even intense warm reds such as Pyrrole Scarlet. This challenge helped me realise that squeezing out every millimetre of colour range wasn’t actually that important to me. Hypothetically, anyway.
What was important to me was being able to paint the way I enjoy painting. Most of the time I paint over ink line art, and value transparent pigments as a result. I also enjoy painting over pencil sketches where transparency isn’t as important, and can branch out into opaque paints as a result. In this hypothetical world though, I wouldn’t be able to branch out my palette. I needed to pick colours that could fit both painting over ink, and painting without line art. Transparency was key.
Next to consider was granulation. I don’t mind painting with granulating colours on line illustrations sometimes, and I have also painted plenty of illustrations with only non-granulating colours. I could go either way with this, I realised. Though that ended up evolving into a dilemma when picking a colour later on, as you’ll see.
I’m not afraid of using granulating colours in ink lined illustrations.
The easiest choice: my all purpose yellow
I knew going in that I wanted to use an all-purpose yellow, and for me that has always been Nickel Azo Yellow PY150. It’s the first yellow that came to mind, and I didn’t really have any debate around other possibilities. It mixes clean greens with a range of blues, and also manages to create lovely oranges even with cooler reds. PY150 also carries a lovely “glow” to it, which I’ve always loved. It is transparent and staining, and I find it useful in both my line and colour illustrations as well as watercolour paintings.
The particular PY150 on my palette at the moment is by QoR, thanks to a gift I received from the wonderful Heidi. Previous to that I have used Sennelier’s PY150 which is named Yellow Lake. The new-to-me QoR version has been lovely to work with so far, and I’m grateful for having the opportunity to try it! The colour mixing chart you will eventually see below was painted with this QoR version.
Initially picking PY150 as a yellow opened up a range of possibilities when it came to the other two colours. So even though it was the first colour I picked for this trio, I still had a lot of freedom in where to go next. I could still create that obvious cyan, magenta, yellow if I wished, but I also had wiggle room for including colours that leaned quite warm or cool. Which brings us to my next decision.
The surprising pick: rose or magenta?
The second pigment I considered was a cool red. Being able to access very vibrant oranges and warm reds isn’t something I often need to do when I paint. As I mentioned earlier, I often mute down even colours like Pyrrole Scarlet. So I would be happy with the oranges and reds that PY150 would mix with a cool red. The question became which cool red.
Most of my painting experience has been with Quinacridone Rose PV19 as a cool red, and would be a good choice due to that built up history with it. However, this year I have started playing with Quinacridone Magenta PR122. A slightly cooler leaning red than PV19, and with a bit more of an intensely saturated appearance. Especially compared to the particular PV19 on my palette at the moment, which is Daniel Smith’s.
Despite my time with PV19, I decided to choose PR122 for this challenge instead. I have really been enjoying the mixes PR122 makes with my other watercolours, and could see myself being happy with it long-term. Whether or not one will win over the other on my real life palette remains to be decided though! For now both of them are living side by side while I explore PR122 some more.
The hardest decision: can I live in a world without granulation?
With two pigments down only one remained, and this is where the struggle really began. What blue do I pick?
My favourite blue in watercolours is Indanthrone Blue PB60. It has been since I laid eyes upon it for the first time, pretty much. It’s a deep and slightly muted warm-ish blue. I have used it in my travel palette as my only warm blue option in the past, and sometimes even make limited palettes for illustrations where it is my only blue. I could see myself using PY150, PR122, and PB60 as a limited palette for perhaps a tiny travel palette or for an illustration. Could I see myself using only the three of them forever though? I wasn’t so sure of the answer when I asked myself that.
The other option was Phthalo Turquoise PB16. Also a newer pigment for me, but not a new hue. I’ve been using the PG7 + PB15 mix version of it for a few years now, and it has also featured in various limited palettes I have put together for travel or paintings. It would open up a larger range of hues and saturation than PB60 would, acting more like a cyan in a c/m/y trio. I sadly put down the PB60, and picked up the PB16.
Then came the thought… did I really want to live in a world without granulation? Really?
Granulation beckoned, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. When I think of granulating blues, PB29 ultramarines immediately come to mind. Ultramarine is the workhorse blue for me. Its one of the pigments I go through the fastest, even if Indanthrone is my favourite blue. I knew that if I used an ultramarine in this trio I would be able to reach lovely purples with the pairing of a warm blue and cool red. For the greens, I should still be able to access some lovely greens despite how warm of a blue it is, thanks to the cooler yellow of PY150.
I sat with swatch cards of PB29 and PB16 for a good while, then decided granulation would win. Ultramarine would be joining the team.
Other granulating blues exist, of course. There’s Cobalt Blue and Cerulean Chromium to name just two. Perhaps you would ask why I wouldn’t pick Cobalt Blue since it is considered a more medium blue, and would be able to reach a larger range of green mixes. My longer experience with ultramarine won out in that decision, as I have only recently started using Cobalt Blue. An opposing reason to my magenta pick but… hey-ho haha.
On my palette currently is French Ultramarine by Schmincke. An intensely granulating version of ultramarine, one of the most granulating I’ve seen. If I’m going for a world with granulation, I may as well go for a lot of it right?
The colour mixing chart of my hypothetical watercolour triad.
It wasn’t an easy decision, but looking at the colour mixing chart I’m happy with my desert-island trio of pigments. The earth tones were actually quite lovely with the three of them together, and I want to explore that further in some not-so-hypothetical limited palettes at some point.
How to join the community tag
I would love to hear how you got on with this question. Was it an easy decision for you? Where did you get stuck, and how did you ultimately choose? If you want to participate and share your trio you can in a few different ways.
If you make videos on YouTube, you can create a video of your trio in any medium (for mediums like colour pencil, choose three specific colours instead of pigments). When you post the video just put the hashtag #onlyTHREEpigments in your video title. That way I can find your video and add it to a community playlist for this challenge. There is no time limit to join, but I will eventually check the hashtag less frequently to update the playlist.
If you don’t make videos but still want to participate, either leave a comment about your trio in the comment section of this post or on my video for this tag.
