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A common noob trap for art is thinking you should get the biggest set of colored pencils or watercolors you can. A dozen colors is actually enough for anyone, but it really matters which twelve. After trying out some nice watercolor pencils, I decided I liked them, but the colors in the box set weren’t good for me. I went to the art store to buy several individual ones to swap out.
A dozen colors that suit your personal expression and blend well together will give your art more identity than having a set of 72 pencils to pull you every which way
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RobertJackson
in reply to abadidea • • •Carlos Solís
in reply to RobertJackson • •Hilary
in reply to Carlos Solís • • •@csolisr
Absolutely not true.
Yes, four colour printing uses CMYK, but there are plenty of colours outside the CMYK gamut. In particular, strong clear reds. We're just so used to four colour CMYK that we tend not to notice.
That said, I agree with the premise that if you're starting to draw/paint, you should work with a limited palette. Otherwise you won't learn how colours work
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Carlos Solís
in reply to Hilary • •Hilary
in reply to Carlos Solís • • •@csolisr
Obvs, at a price, professional printers use spot colours as well as CMYK. I can't see that becoming available for small-scale printers. For commercial not technical reasons - obvs it would be easy enough to make a printer with an extra slot for a spot colour cartridge. But given that most people are happy with CMYK and there's a VAST range of spot colours, it wouldn't make sense to produce the cartridges. Too many, with only small sales for each
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abadidea
in reply to abadidea • • •abadidea
in reply to abadidea • • •Here’s the blend grid of the twelve watercolor pencils that came in the box on the left, and my new blend grid after I swapped some out from an individual pencils display at the art store. Still twelve pencils, but now it suits my art style much better
#mastoart
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kate
in reply to abadidea • • •Primo
in reply to abadidea • • •Xaropzz
in reply to abadidea • • •Looking for explanations…
in reply to abadidea • • •My partner gave me a set of 72 Derwent pencils after I mentioned always wanting a set as a kid. I doodled with them for a year, in the belief that I can’t draw, & then enrolled in an art class.
When I bought my first tubes of watercolour, I got 2 reds, a yellow & a blue, and I’ve only built on that slowly.
That set of colour pencils hooked me into art through playing with colour contrast & combinations. So you’re right about not needing lots of colours, but they can be inspiring.
chell (friend of eggbug)
in reply to abadidea • • •this goes for digital art too imo
i like to use text editor color schemes bc it makes for a cohesive set of colors and frees me from having to make so many decisions
eight colors and eight shades of grey is Enough
book_dragon
in reply to abadidea • • •CausticHarmony
in reply to abadidea • • •abadidea
in reply to CausticHarmony • • •abadidea reshared this.
Leeloo
in reply to abadidea • • •@CausticHarmony
So do computer colors. EGA for example, only has four bits - red, green, blue and "intensity". Which blends to 16 colors..
(As long as you ignore the hack where an EGA monitor detects dark yellow and displays brown instead).
CausticHarmony
in reply to Leeloo • • •SomeAnoTooter
in reply to abadidea • • •Aatch
in reply to abadidea • • •in a similar vein, if you're getting into a new hobby it can be tempting to get All The Tools, but often you only need a couple of core ones to get started.
When I started leatherworking I got an awl and leatherworking needles (I already had a craft knife). That's it. You'll probably want more tools later, but starting with the minimum set allows you to focus on what you actually need for what you want to do.