How Many Colours Do You Need?

Like I wrote in my previous post, a change of the weather makes me change the art medium I am working (read doodling) with. So with some pretty good weather here in Holland, I took out my watercolour box and the tins with the watercolour crayons and watercolour pencils as well.

The watercolour box is wonderful, but the colours are so sensible and serious. And with the sun out, you really want sunny and different colours to work with. I got quickly bored with the lack of reds in the watercolour box, so I grabbed the crayons which needed a bit of sharpening first.
With a pencil sharpener I started with some fun red colours and when the shavings fell on my table, I realised that it would be a pity to just throw them away.

So I took out an empty plastic palette and collected the shavings. I added a few drops of water and let it mix together.
My intention was to let the 'paint' dry up in the pallette and use it like the watercolour box: just brush some water over it and you can paint away. This way, the colours of the crayons would be as easy to use as the watercolours in the box - which means: loads of different colours!

Always available, easy to store, easy to use. Just my kind of thing.

What I did learn was that you only have to use one single tiny drop. It took several days for the shavings to dry up in the pallete!

Watercolour crayons are a bit waxy. The medium that binds the pigment together is different than the one that is used in watercolour pans (arabic gum).This would explain the drying time in the palette. I did not notice a different drying time when actually painting on paper from this self made pallette.

Inspired by all these reds, pinks and purples I thought it would be nice to make tags with all the colours that I have to take with me to an art store to compare colours.
The funny part was, that when I was making these tags, that I discovered that I really had no need to go to the art store anymore now, I have way too many colours now...

What a pity! No art-store-visit-excuse anymore!
Well, maybe I can use that time to use all those colours instead!