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Watercolor Splits Great Gift Idea

Hello Friends, How are you? Are you guys missing me? I am missing you all and the daily dose of inspiration. Insert sad face. I hope you continue to find that “YOU” time and are able to carve out coloring time.

On another note …

Some  of you had reached out to me on Instagram about the watercolors that I have been using and I have been wanting to share what I discovered. In the past I have dabble & purchased some tubes and boy are they expensive …. even on sale. Ching ching! Then a little angle landed upon me and her name is Lydia from Understandblue.

Lydia is the ying to my yang and I call her my lettuce twin. (She and I are the only people that I know that soak our lettuce for 30 minutes or so) Lydia is detailed with her tutorials and precise and I am not! She can explain anything about watercoloring and I can not ahahh but, I am learning to be a little more descriptive.

Seriously though Lydia knows her stuff! So Lydia has a watercolor split group! Basically what she does is squirt the colors and let’s them cook or set into their little containers because this way you can have them all or MORE of them. Since I don’t watercolor that much it would take me forever to finish a tube so why spend all that money on a full tube. When Lydia splits them it allows one to have more colors! I think it’s brilliant really so I wanted to share it with you. Lydia is better at describing it so here it is in a nut shell in her words.

1) This is a group to split tubes of Daniel Smith Watercolor to make them affordable for those of us with full set syndrome. You can participate in individual splits – all splits are open at all times – order at will. Depending on the availability of the paints, I will have some pre-cured splits on hand. If not, splits take about two weeks to cure. Purchasing splits will get you as many pigments as you want for about 20% of the cost of purchasing tubes. Most cardmakers will not even use a half pan (the size of each pigment shipped with the splits) in years of painting, so certainly not a full tube.
2) If you want to participate in a split, first look at the Pinterest boards I set up for each split. Each split contains between 25-30 colors, and the cost is around $100. I include the cost of the half pans and shipping in the final price of each split.
3) Answering the question “what split should I get?”. This is the best I can offer – look at the Pinterest boards (linked to each letter here) and pick what suits you the most, but here’s a run-down.
D was specifically chosen for landscape painting and mixing properties for natural settings.
A is what I call the “desert” split – warm oranges and beautiful blues – looks like New Mexico. B is warmer than D, but not as warm as A.
C is the ideal floral split.
E is a very balanced split, but has my favorite skin tones.
F is a jewel tone split.
G is the split where we just caught up on whatever was left – the DS line is heavy on yellows and reds, so there are lots of red, yellows, browns and purples in here. It’s stunning, but looks strange at first.
H is the remainder of the PrimaTek line – 100% of these are PrimaTeks, meaning they are made of actual semi-precious stones – tourmaline, amethyst, etc.
I is all the duochromes and the iridescent, and it’s the full line, so it’s the largest split. All splits together make up the entirety of the Daniel Smith line.
4) In the FAQs section there is a document with recommended palettes, tips and tricks, and I highly recommend the Waffle Flower swatching stamps for creating your swatches once you’ve received your split.
Thanks and don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.
Lydia Fiedler
Community Manager – Splitcoaststampers

Just to explain I took a screen shot of Lydia’s color group to make it super easy to see the color choices. So far I have two of the splits “C” and “D”. After doing this post I am going to add “F” and “A” to my growing collection. ONE THING TO NOTE IF YOU ORDER ASK LYDIA ABOUT THE OPTION TO GETTING THEM IN A PALETTE. They come in a the little squares with the paint and it took me awhile to put them in a palette lol. If you decide to swatch any watercolors or markers I highly recommend the Waffle Flower Swatch set. Here’s a post and video about my swatching experience.

 

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Comments

  1. Gwendolyn says

    That’s such a great idea Kathy, so thanks for sharing. I just wish I knew about this before I bought 42 tubes of paint as I LOVE Daniel Smith!

  4. Henriëtte says

    Wow Kathy, this is awesome. I don’t have watercolours and I probably will never buy them ( even the split one are for me financially out of reach) but it is good to know.
    You never know.
    Thank you so much for this post, I missed you and your daily posts indeed.

  6. creatingincolors says

    Great job! I like the way you summarized all those details and colors. I already have most of the splits, but will save this post for quick and easy reference. P.S. Maybe you can cover the lettuce soaking in another post(?) 🙂

  7. Teresa Doyle says

    Thanks for the reminder about this Kathy. I follow Lydia and have read about her water colour “splits” before and it is a great idea. Also the WF stamp set for swatting is on my WF wishlist, Nina nailed it when she brought that collection to her store.

  10. Stefanie says

    What a wonderful idea! I have wanted to try DS watercolors but the price was a bit prohibitive for a beginner. This could be an opportunity to try them. Thanks Kathy, great post.

  11. Donna Oates says

    This is brilliant! TFS!!! I love the colors for Daniel Smith. I will check this out! I need to take the plunge and just do it. Fear of not getting it perfect is hard for me as a crafter with watercoloring.

  14. Bunny Dobbie says

    What a great idea! It always drove me crazy to discover a tube of expensive watercolour paint had dried up in the tube. Or the tube lid got stuck closed. Brilliant!

  16. Andrea Hastilow says

    Thank you for that information, will store it just incase I get the hang of them. Lucky for me I got the Altenew set for my birthday off my better half so for now I’m happy. But just incase I will note this information.
    Sorry so late in reading posts have been really ill for 6 wks, just coming out other side of it now luckily.

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