Sets of five
Seven ways of choosing five colours from the 24-colour tin, and what each set can do once its colours meet on paper.
Where this landed. These sets are no longer in the app. The subject sets were on the phone when this was written, and they were replaced by four palettes of a few paints, each shown at full strength and thinned with water.
Under each set: its range from darkest to lightest, and the most vivid green, orange and violet its five pigments and ten pairs can reach, plus its darkest colour or mix with its value, where 0 is black and 100 is white. The pairs are real pigment mixes, the same model the app paints with. Tap any set to see it on the phone.
By subjectWas on the phone
What the phone had when this was written. Each set is what a painter would lay out for one kind of subject. Between them they cover all 24 pigments.
Ivory Black, Payne's Gray, Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna, Yellow Ochre
French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Permanent Sap Green, Payne's Gray
Indanthrene Blue, Phthalo Blue, Cerulean Blue, Phthalo Green, Raw Umber
Permanent Rose, Permanent Magenta, Dioxazine Violet, Lemon Yellow, Permanent Sap Green
Cadmium-free Red, Pyrrole Orange, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, Olive Green
Hansa Yellow, Cadmium-free Yellow, Hooker's Green, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium-free Red
To mix anything
Sets built so their pairs reach as far as possible: a yellow, a red and a blue with one warm or cool bias, plus an earth or a neutral to make greys. Fewer ready-made colours, more made in the mixing.
Cadmium-free Yellow, Cadmium-free Red, French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna, Payne's Gray
Lemon Yellow, Permanent Rose, Phthalo Blue, Raw Umber, Ivory Black
Lemon Yellow, Cadmium-free Yellow, Permanent Rose, French Ultramarine, Phthalo Blue
One temperature
All warm, all cool, or all grey. A painting from one of these holds together because nothing in it fights, and that is also its limit.
Yellow Ochre, Pyrrole Orange, Cadmium-free Red, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber
Lemon Yellow, Phthalo Green, Cerulean Blue, French Ultramarine, Dioxazine Violet
Payne's Gray, Ivory Black, Raw Umber, Indanthrene Blue, Burnt Umber
Opposites
Two opposite colours, a second of each, and a neutral. Opposites side by side are at their brightest, and mixed together they make the most useful greys and browns.
French Ultramarine, Cerulean Blue, Pyrrole Orange, Burnt Sienna, Payne's Gray
Dioxazine Violet, Permanent Magenta, Hansa Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black
Alizarin Crimson, Permanent Rose, Hooker's Green, Permanent Sap Green, Raw Umber
Light and dark
Sets chosen for the range of values rather than of hues. Sumi-e is built on value, from the pale wash to the full black, and these put that first.
Indanthrene Blue, Payne's Gray, Ivory Black, Dioxazine Violet, Burnt Umber
Lemon Yellow, Cerulean Blue, Permanent Rose, Yellow Ochre, Permanent Sap Green
Payne's Gray, Indanthrene Blue, Raw Umber, Olive Green, Yellow Ochre
In the order of the box
The 24 as the back of the box lists them, taken five at a time. The box runs round the colour wheel, so each stack is five neighbours. Neighbours mix cleanly, with no mud, but a stack of neighbours cannot reach far past itself: most reach one of green, orange or violet at best, and three of the five cannot go darker than value 34, so there is nothing to draw a dark line with. Twenty-four does not divide by five, so the last stack is the four darkest earths and blacks. Under each name are the pigment codes printed on the box.
Lemon Yellow, Hansa Yellow, Cadmium-free Yellow, Pyrrole Orange, Cadmium-free Red
PY175 · PY154 · code not legible · PO62 · code not legible
Alizarin Crimson, Permanent Rose, Permanent Magenta, Dioxazine Violet, Indanthrene Blue
PR83 · PV19 · PV19 · PV23 · PB60
French Ultramarine, Phthalo Blue, Cerulean Blue, Phthalo Green, Hooker's Green
PB29 · PB15 · PB35 · PG7 · PG36, PY110
Permanent Sap Green, Olive Green, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna
PG36, PY110 · PY65, PB15:6, PR101 · PY43 · PY42, PR101 · PR101
Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Payne's Gray, Ivory Black
PBr7 · PBr7, PR101, PY42 · PB15, PBk6, PV19 · PBk9
After known palettes
Adapted from palettes painters are known for, fitted to the pigments in this tin. There is no white in watercolour, so where a palette relied on white, the paper does that job.
Yellow Ochre, Cadmium-free Red, Ivory Black, Burnt Umber, Payne's Gray
Ivory Black, Payne's Gray, Burnt Sienna, Indanthrene Blue, Permanent Rose
French Ultramarine, Phthalo Green, Cadmium-free Red, Yellow Ochre, Ivory Black