Starting your watercolour journey is exciting — and a little overwhelming. Walk into any art supply store (or browse online) and you're faced with hundreds of colours, each with its own personality, pigment load, and price tag. If you've landed on Daniel Smith as your brand of choice, you've already made an excellent decision. But now comes the real question: which colours do you actually need?
This guide will walk you through how to build a first Daniel Smith watercolour palette that's versatile, colour-theory-sound, and genuinely fun to paint with.
Why Daniel Smith?
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolours are beloved by artists worldwide for their exceptional pigment concentration, wide range of unique colours (including genuine mineral pigments like Lapis Lazuli and Mayan Blue), and consistent quality. For beginners, this means your colours will behave predictably, mix cleanly, and reward you as your skills grow. You won't outgrow them.
Start With a Dot Card
Before committing to full tubes, we strongly recommend picking up a dot card. The DANIEL SMITH 66 Watercolour Dot Card gives you a tiny sample of 66 colours — enough to test granulation, transparency, and mixing behaviour on your own paper before you buy. If you want to go deeper, the DANIEL SMITH 266 Watercolour + 22 Gouache Dot Cards is the ultimate sampler and a favourite among colour-obsessed artists.
Swatching a dot card onto watercolour paper is one of the most satisfying (and practical) things you can do as a new painter. You'll immediately see which colours sing to you.
The Classic Starter Palette: A Split-Primary Approach
The most versatile beginner palette is built around a split-primary system — two versions of each primary colour (one warm, one cool). This gives you the ability to mix clean secondaries and a full range of neutrals without muddy results.
Here's a tried-and-true Daniel Smith split-primary starter palette:
- Warm Yellow: New Gamboge — rich, golden, and great for foliage and skin tones
- Cool Yellow: Hansa Yellow Light — bright, transparent, and clean for mixing greens
- Warm Red: Pyrrol Scarlet — vivid and powerful, leans orange
- Cool Red: Carmine — a classic cool crimson, beautiful for florals and mixing purples
- Warm Blue: French Ultramarine — granulating, rich, and essential for skies and shadows
- Cool Blue: Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) — intense and transparent, the workhorse of watercolour
With just these six colours, you can mix virtually any hue on the colour wheel. Add a tube of Moonglow — Daniel Smith's legendary granulating grey-violet — and you have a palette that will carry you through landscapes, portraits, botanicals, and beyond.
One Colour Worth Knowing: Lavender
If you paint florals, soft atmospheric backgrounds, or anything with a dreamy quality, Daniel Smith Lavender is a must-try. It's a granulating, luminous colour that's nearly impossible to mix from scratch — one of those Daniel Smith specialties that makes the brand so special.
Tips for Setting Up Your Palette
- Use a porcelain or large plastic palette with generous wells — watercolour needs room to bloom.
- Squeeze out more paint than you think you need. Dried Daniel Smith paint reactivates beautifully, so nothing goes to waste.
- Arrange colours in a logical order — warm to cool, or around the colour wheel — so mixing becomes intuitive.
- Label your palette until you know your colours by sight. Pigment names matter more than marketing names.
When You're Ready to Expand
Once you're comfortable with your starter palette, you can begin adding colours that serve specific subjects. Earth tones like Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber are essential for portraits and landscapes. Daniel Smith's famous Primatek mineral colours — Sleeping Beauty Turquoise, Amethyst Genuine, Jadeite Genuine — are extraordinary for texture and granulation effects.
The key is to add colours intentionally, one at a time, and really learn each one before moving on.
Ready to Start?
Building a thoughtful first palette is one of the best investments you can make as a watercolour artist. Daniel Smith's quality means every colour you choose will perform beautifully — now and for years to come.
Shop our full Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolour collection →
Have questions about specific colours or need help choosing? Drop us a line — we're artists too, and we love talking paint.