At Asialink Penang 2024 one of the items in our goodie bag was a series of dot cards that were the complete range of Daniel Smith watercolours. Dots cards are made from watercolour paints that are hand squeezed onto watercolour cards and left to dry. They are handed out to customers or you can buy them. You reactivate the paint with a wet brush to create a swatch or many sketchers I know simply use the paint directly in their watercolour sketchbooks. Handing out dot cards as gifts was not only generous but a smart move on the part of Daniel Smith art supplies as it has given me the opportunity to swatch their whole range of colours. I would not normally go out and buy the whole range of anything let alone paints. Not only would the budget not stretch to such an indulgence but in the end I would not use all the paints either! One of the reasons dot charts exist is that you can test a range of colours economically and decide which ones fit your current palette.

Every manufacturer of paint produces a colour range is similar to other manufacturers. You always end up liking and using a particular blue from one range and yellow from another and so on.  This happens because when you look closely at what is offered by each manufacturer they all create slightly different colours. Each tube or pan may be named in a similar manner but has a unique hue, texture, and quality. To get to grips with this and understand how each brand and each colour behaves, swatching new watercolour paints is an invaluable practice. 

One of the best pieces of advice I received when I was learning to represent the world I live in, is to know and understand the media you use for that task. You need to know how that media behaves and what it does under different conditions. Swatching the full range of paints produced by Daniel Smith provides a clearly seen sample of how each paint behaves on paper. You are able to see a colour’s true hue, intensity, and granulation. By swatching you can see not only how each paint interacts with the paper you can also see how each paint interacts with other colours. This knowledge is important so you can use layering techniques to create the desired depth in your work.

One of the charms and challenges of using watercolour paints is that they vary greatly in terms of transparency and opacity. If you understand which colours are transparent you know which will come to life when painting in layers allowing underlying layers to show through. Swatching will also tell you which colours will provide full coverage as you will discover which colours are opaque. 

As I swatched I recorded useful information such as the name of the colour, and the series number mainly so I would know the price range the colour fell into. I also recorded the lightfast rating. Lightfast ratings refer to a paint’s ability to resist fading when exposed to light. 

The process of swatching itself is a valuable exercise in observation and technique. You will learn more about the properties of your paint. On a very practical side of things creating swatches of the whole range allows me to shop online easily. Often paints will go on sale and if I know exactly how the paint will behave I can decide if I want to purchase a tube. 

Some people find swatching boring but I don’t I love the sense of discovery as the process unfolds. For me an afternoon swatching is relaxing and fun! 

I am not affiliated with Daniel Smith watercolours but I love using them and will add a few more colours to my regular paints as a result of their great gift given away in the goodie to attendees of the  Asialink Penang 2024.