Roz Stendahl sent me a Daniel Smith Watercolor Sample Card as part of her Silent Give-Away. I’m pretty set in my ways when it comes to paint. I like ultramarine blue and a couple other blues, sap green and viridian, a few cads, a nice transparent yellow, and alizarin crimson. But I do like to experiment, so I spent half a Saturday smearing around the little dots of sample colors.
The card is divided into three types of colors: Primateks, quinacridones, and cadmiums, and luminescent colors. (You can see the card on Roz’s blog.
Here’s how they wash out:
I’ve tried to use Primateks before, and haven’t had much luck with them, but I did enjoy some of the colors on the dot sampler card.
My feeling about Primateks is that it’s better to work with them straight from the tube, as I find they don’t re-wet well. After working with the colors on the card, I think I’ll drag out the tubes I once bought (and then resigned to the bottom of the paint drawer), and try them again.
The luminescent colors have always intrigued me, but I’m sorry to say that I never thought I’d have much use for them. My paintings aren’t usually sparkly. Still, they were fun to play with.
It’s hard to see exactly what effect these paints have when you see them on a blog, but if you look closely at the picture below, you can see that they’ve made the otherwise dull (and not in a bad way) under paint have a glittery sheen.
To see how another artist uses Daniel Smith’s sparkly watercolors, you might want to read Hilary Page’s post on Interference watercolors.
I’d also recommend the article, flesh tones from natural earth pigment watercolors.
Mockingbirds at midnight 
Just looking at such samples leaves my mouth watering—–as if I planned to eat all those delicious colors! Thank you for reminding me of how much pleasure is to be had in playing with color possibilities and how many worlds can open up from there.