So welcome to part 2 of the short but sweet watercolour goodies series. Today I will show you my Grandmothers small travel palette and also some tins of surplus or refill paints. I have to also mention that these small palettes and pieces are somewhat „edited“, by my mother as well as myself. My mother was sorting through all these paints some years ago, fitting into spare tins whatever did not have a fixed place in a palette or was left over, then as I received the paket, I also sorted through them. What colour I could not identify and wasn‘t enough of there I cleaned the pans out and keep them safe for future use, but more on the pans later.
First one up is my Grandmothers travel palette. She would have bought all these paints in the 1980s to early 90s, and she did go outside and do a good bit of plein air painting. She also visited the Zoo frequently to paint and draw the animals. In a later post I might share a watercolour painting she made in a museum, it shows a small egyptian statue.
Well, point is, she had a travel palette...
And all cleaned up inside, with paints reactivated and sampled, ready to go once more. Some of the colours came with labels and names/numbers, and I tried to identify them as much as I could.
Now I had to see what this little palette was capable of...
I have to say I have never seen such a very, very neutral palette. And some of the colours are highly granulating and very opaque, almost like modern gouache paints.
Next is a little vintage (?) tin with more goodies inside!
Yes, I guess this tin is old enough to be labelled „vintage ;-)
It contains Schmincke (some Horadam) watercolour tubes. They are still soft, and of course I had to check them out. In some the paint had hardened just inside the srew top, but a little water and a toothpick sorted that problem, good thing that watercolours never really dry out permanently. And I have to admit that I really like that Cerulean Blue.
This following one is a bit of a toughie. In a way it could be said that in this tin are all the „leftovers“. But most of them are full pans, and were presumably bought as full pans, so leftovers is not quite accurate. I really had trouble figuring out how to view this one, until I learned that this tin was filled by my mother with whatever did not have a place anywhere else. And then I also put in one or two leftover half pans, so colourtheme wise this one is a little all over the place.
Some of the colours are really nice, I do like the two intensely coloured blues, and the yellows as well as the darker of the two reds. I have no idea what colour the majority of these full pans are. When I got them they all had some fluff growing on them, and when I reactivated them I did so with really hot water from my kettle.
AsI stated, this tin is a little all over the place when it comes to colour scheme. That did not stoo me from swatching all the colours out with each other, and taking notes for future reference.
I am aware that, since I do not know most of the colours names, when the pans run out, the colour is gone. So I will take careful note of the ones I like the most and see if I can find a close match to them in the future.
Also I am very much concerned about the paint formulations. During my research I found references to colours having been discontinued due to „labelling regulations“. Well, I get the manufacturer doesn‘t want to admit any toxic ingredients in their paints, and I also know that at least the majority of modern watercolour paints do not contain the likes of lead and real cadmium and such toxic materials any more. But my colours are a little over 20 years old and a lot can change in formulations during that time, it will be good to remember this when painting and not stick brush tips or handles into my mouth or dump my paint water into my vegetable patch.
I really have to come up with some nice motif to paint with these goodies...
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