Filtering tutorials by Palette
Classes in the Tutorial Library can be filtered by time to complete, level, style and more. One of those filters is 'Palette'.
The Palette filter enables you to find the tutorials that can be completed with the set of paints you have. This enables you to gradually build up your paints.
Below is an explanation of the 3 main Palettes:
1) The 'Complete Palette' of 11 paint colours
All of Anna's tutorials in the library can be painted using 11 paints. These are:
- Payne’s Gray*
- Burnt Sienna*
- French Ultramarine*
- Winsor Green (Yellow Shade)*
- Permanent Rose*
- Winsor Lemon*
- Permanent Sap Green
- Scarlet Lake
- Permanent Carmine
- Opera Rose
- Quinacridone Violet
Anna recommends eventually having all of these paints on your palette. (You might previously have heard Anna call these the Essential Range of paints).
All of Anna's tutorials can be painted with these 11 paints (though some you'll need to do more colour-mixing than if you use the Extended palette).
2) The 'Limited Palette' of 6 paints
The paints marked with * in the list above are the 6 in the Limited Palette
To complete the foundation course we recommend all new members begin with (Realistic Watercolour 101), a limited palette of 6 paints is all you need. This enables new joiners to collect Professional quality paints over time.
Even if you already have more paints on your palette, there may be situations when you'd like to further scale back the number of paints you use. Through her experimentations, Anna's found that a lot of the colours in nature can be achieved with just 6 paints.
She has created a video which explains when you might want to work with a limited palette, which colours she recommends for this and importantly why, and the pros and cons of working with a limited palette in this way. You can watch the video here.
Working with an 'Extended Palette' of 18 colours
Previously Anna painted with an extended set of 18 paint colours (you can find details of the additional paints here).
Over time, Anna's engineered the tutorials to require fewer of these paint colours so you don't need to buy all 18. Many of these colours can be mixed to a fairly close match from the 11 paints in the Complete Palette.
However, having these extra paints on your palette does give the most flexibility for achieving the vibrant range of colours in nature, and can make the colour mixing process as easy as possible.
So you don't need to add these extra paints to your palette, but you might enjoy painting with them if you do.
Tutorials using Anna's Limited or Complete Palette:
You'll find that using Anna's Complete Palette, you can complete any of the tutorials in Nature Studio - but of course you'll need to work out your own colour mixes as Anna may be using more paint colours in the classes.
Using the Limited Palette, you'll also be able to achieve a decent match, but you won't get the same vibrancy as is possible with the Complete and Extended palettes.