Denise's Da Vinci Watercolor Palettes
Da Vinci watercolors are crafted using the finest quality natural gum arabic and the highest concentration of finely-milled pigments. Carefully crafted in small batches in the United States, Da Vinci watercolors can be used straight from the tube or dried in pans to experience beautiful vibrancy, excellent dispersion, and remarkable rewetting properties.
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In October of 2018, I released my first collaborative project with Da Vinci Paint Co. Since then, I have carefully curated several palettes and custom watercolor colors with them. You can find each of those collaborations below.
Denise's Green
Denise and Da Vinci created Denise's Green for her Earth Friendly Palette as a sap green that didn't contain nickel azo yellow, yet still depicted a warm, earthy glow.
This natural sap green can be used straight from the tube or as a mixing color on your palette to create a rich browns, moody teals, and beautiful turquoises.
Denise's Green is available in Denise's Earth Friendly & Wildlife Palettes.
Denise's Gray
Denise's Gray is a granulating gray that she has been using in her home studio for years.
In concentrated washes, it appears as a neutral gray. However, in wet washes, it separates dramatically and beautifully into its base colors, appearing as a cool blue-gray with rich earth red undertones. It is fantastic in mixes for creating atmospheric colors.
Denise's Gray is available in Denise's Embrace Opacity & Wildlife Palettes.
Stormy Blue
Denise and Da Vinci created Stormy Blue for her Embrace Opacity palette.
Akin to a more opaque version of Payne's Gray, Stormy Blue is blue-black in masstone and softens to midnight blue in washes. It can easily be used on its own as the dark neutral on you palette and is also very helpful at darkening other colors without loosing vibrancy.
Stormy Blue is available in Denise's Embrace Opacity & Earth Friendly Palettes.
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Earth Friendly Palette
Denise’s Earth Friendly Da Vinci Watercolor Palette is a carefully curated non-toxic, vegan watercolor palette containing 24 hand-poured half pans. While watercolors tend to produce less waste than other paint mediums in general, this palette allows artists to further reduce their impact on the environment by intentionally avoiding the use of cadmiums, cobalts, manganese, and nickel pigments.
Denise has carefully researched each pigment included this set, focusing on their environmental impact while simultaneously striving to create a balanced mixing palette. The set includes some of her favorite primary colors, but is also joined by some eco-friendly alternatives including a cerulean blue hue and a new version of sap green that she worked together with Da Vinci to create that maintains a warm glow while avoiding the use of nickel azo yellow. The color selection is rounded off with a wide selection of opaque earth tones that she is well known for using in her animal portraits.
Denise has created a mixing chart of the 24 colors in this palette to help demonstrate the range of colors that can be achieved through this versatile palette.
Each color pairing intersects at two points on the chart. One of the mixtures is in masstone while the other is the same mixture diluted. You can create even more combinations with different ratios paint and by mixing more than two colors at once.
Click the image to the left to view an enlarged version of the chart.
This link is an affiliate link in which Denise earns a commission of sales to help support her and her business.
See this palette in action!
Updated
February 2023!
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Now includes Thioindigo Violet,
Terra Cotta, and Stormy Blue
Wildlife Palette
Denise’s Wildlife Da Vinci Watercolor Palette is a curated watercolor palette containing 12 hand-poured half pans. This set contains a warm primary trio followed by nine earthier colors that can be mixed or used straight from the pans.
This set overlaps with her larger Earth Friendly Palette, but is a more affordable and compact travel option. It contains her most used palette staples as well as a few new colors ideal for painting natural subjects.
Denise has created a mixing chart of the 12 colors in this palette to help demonstrate the range of colors that can be achieved through this compact travel palette.
Each color pairing intersects at two points on the chart. One of the mixtures is in masstone while the other is the same mixture diluted. You can create even more combinations with different ratios paint and by mixing more than two colors at once.
Click the image to the left to view an enlarged version of the chart.
This link is an affiliate link in which Denise earns a commission of sales to help support her and her business.
See this palette in action!
Updated
February 2023!
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Now includes Da Vinci Yellow
and Denise's Gray
Embrace Opacity Palette
Many new artists are encouraged to avoid opaque watercolors because they are said to cause muddy mixes. For this reason, it can take years for artists to discover the beauty in these often overlooked pigments.
While some craft-grade watercolors can be opaque due to chalky, low-quality fillers, the high-quality professional watercolors in this set contain naturally opaque pigments (with larger and denser particles) than those found in naturally transparent pigments.
These colors useful for creating soft, velvety textures and results in a unique painting experience that one can’t find in transparent watercolors or gouache alone.
Denise’s Embrace Opacity Da Vinci Palette is a carefully curated collection of earth yellows, oranges, and reds along with complementary shades of blue, teal, and green. Titan Buff adds a beautiful range of pastels while Lilac adds a surprising level of versatility.
Denise's new custom colors, Denise’s Gray and Stormy Blue, can stand on their own or be used with any other color in the palette to create moody, atmospheric mixtures.
See this palette in action!
Denise has created a mixing chart of the 12 colors in this palette to help demonstrate the range of colors that can be achieved through this unique, atmospheric palette.
Each color pairing intersects at two points on the chart. One of the mixtures is mixed with more of the color on the vertical axis while the other is painted with more of the color on the horizontal axis. Every mixture is painted with a loose gradient to provide as much information as possible. You can create even more combinations with different ratios paint and by mixing more than two colors at once.
Click the image to the left to view an enlarged version of the chart.
This link is an affiliate link in which Denise earns a commission of sales to help support her and her business.
Moody Trio
Perylene Green is one of Denise's favorite colors in watercolor. It is a fantastic mixing color that transforms nearly any other color into a deep, moody version of itself.
In her first Trio with Da Vinci, Denise wanted to showcase this dark green alongside a cool red and warm blue to show off the versatile range of colors it can provide to nearly any palette.
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See this Trio in action!
Moody Too Trio
Seeing double? Not quite! This color selection is similar to Denise's original Moody Trio. However, this Trio was specifically developed for use alongside Denise's Embrace Opacity Palette.
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While creating the Embrace Opacity palette, Denise carefully tested dozens of pigments to create a unique and cohesive collection. During this process, she also found a few standout color pairings that didn’t quite fit the vision for the base palette, but they lent so much versatility to this selection of colors.
Perylene Maroon adds soft rosy pinks and peaches when mixed with colors like Titan Buff, Naples Yellow, and Lilac, a rich brick red when mixed with Violet Iron Oxide, and interesting warm darks with Denise’s Gray and Stormy Blue.
Indanthrene Blue offers an assortment of blues when mixed with Titan Buff, Cerulean Blue Genuine, and Cobalt Turquoise Deep, cool browns when mixed with Raw Sienna and Terra Cotta, and a striking granulating dark gray when mixed with Violet Iron Oxide.
Phthalo Green lends a wide range of greens and teals when mixed with almost any color in the palette and a stunning soft gray when mixed with Lilac.
See this Trio in action!
This link is an affiliate link in which Denise earns a commission of sales to help support her and her business.
