Make a Watercolor Swatch Card today!

In high school I was reasonably good at Art; fast forward a decade, I found myself in Design school and studied Architecture, with much interest and zest. Working with textures, materials and dabbling into varied forms of Art was commonplace, also making me a borderline hoarder of  Art supply of all kinds.

With time I switched jobs, worked in corporates and kept making Art on the side as a hobby.

However, I've never made a Color Swatch card before, and it took me 35 years to know one couldn't make Art reasonably well without one!..at least not to their full potential!

Thanks to Aziza Iqbal's classes in the GCIA community, I started making these colorful delights which are more useful than I thought!

The thing is, the way a color is perceived by our eye differs from material to material. The color we see on the shiny metal tube does look very different on smooth paper, textured paper and all the more on tea-stained paper, a lot like how lipstick shows differently on different skin tones. 

Its only after putting paint on paper, does one realize that even classic color combos work only when the right shade is used. Oxymorons like warm-blues (blue towards the reddish spectrum on the color wheel) and cool-reds become so much clear when one paints on actual paper.

Nothing beats that feeling of triumph when an artist meets the envisioned color in a composition, the flipside of which could be a complete disaster even leading to blunders and requiring a fresh start! 

So why guess at all ? A color chart helps nip the fear of unknown combos in watercolor right in the beginning.

Sometimes one needs to work with transparency, then too it comes in handy, leading a proper understanding of how much is too much and actually how little we might need sometimes for the purpose.

Did you know, even colors with the same code but manufactured by different brands may look different on paper?

Before making color charts, I was mostly using color straight out of the tube. I hardly mixed, but once you start, there's no turning back. There's a million combinations, brilliant tones that hit the spot, that I was mostly missing out on! It also gave me potential ideas for my upcoming projects, a decision fatigue that many of us experience every once a while.

When we know enough about something, our sense of control over the medium improves and so does the comfort and confidence in the medium. Its literally the essential Back-to-basics move that goes a long way. 

Now I know, only a novice would underestimate the potential of these color cards.. and while there are many good reasons to make one (or many), if you're still doubting, ask yourself why not!! 

Once you get started, you might like the process so much, it might as well be the start of a color chart frenzy.. and a very useful one.

Happy painting!!