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Designs by Rachel Beth Watercolors - Winter Garden - First Impression/Swatches

This cool toned watercolor set by Designs by Rachel Beth on Etsy took me out of my comfort zone a bit.  I tend to gravitate toward warm colors and neutrals, so this muted palette was a great addition to my (out of control) stash.  There a no shimmers in this set but the purples and blues are calming and serene.  Winter Garden is the perfect name for this set, she is really good with the names by the way.  I feel like with her other paints, a little goes a long way because they are so pigmented.  I like to layer washes and her paints do tend to lift easily (come back off of the paper with water and some smudging), so be careful of that.  Just lay down your wash and be done with it, don't fiddle too much or you can lift up what you already laid down.

I have two tips for you when working with her palettes or any small tin palettes.  The first tip is to have a mixing palette on hand.  This is the one I use.  A white plate or plastic one is fine, I just needed room to mix my paints.  These beautiful tins have all of the space occupied by the swatch paper and the paints (which I don't mind at all, so convenient).  So when I was working with them I completely forgot that I need room to mix and once I had that room, painting was an even better experience.  My second tip is to get a holder of some sort because if you are like me, you will quickly have a collection of little tins.  I have a Glossier pink bubble wrap zip bag that they package their products in, so it works perfectly. 

Do you have this palette? Do you tend to paint with cool tones or warm tones?  I am a warm tone person, through and through.

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