Reply To: "Mayan" watercolors: Daniel Smith / Greenleaf & Blueberry

[Tom Cunliffe]

What an interesting post – and article.  I have never heard of these colours and at first glance I don’t think I would like to use them myself, being very much a lover of transparent and granulating colour (oops, sorry, I’m probably spelling color wrong for you good folk).

I have grown to love some of the colors in my pallette which is now a mixture of W&N,  DS and Graham.  I looked the Greenleaf and Blueberry website but everything seemed to be out of stock – are they trying to work on the “scarcity” principle of marketing I wonder?  It all seems a bit of a hype when everyone has to go on the website at a particular time and date and then can then browse for an hour before the shop opens!  When there are so many beautiful colours available from manufacturers like those I list above, and many others, I’m not sure I see the point!  (cries of anguish from G&B’s fans!).

Anyway, I don’t want to be negative – I kind of guess that having painted all these years and now being in the last quarter of my life (fifth, sixth, tenth, hundredth?) I’ve got to understand the paints I use and much as I love the vibrancy of pzazz of these Mayan colors I think I’ll probably pass on them for now.