Sparrow makes a paint swatch journal

[SparrowMarie 19191]

After a poll this seems to be the best place to put this thread. For the most part I'll stick photos under spoilers because my phone likes to make them large.

 

So I bought a sketchbook today with the intent to catalog and show off all of my paints. I thought it was quite the appropriate book to get.

Spoiler

 

First I made a grid on a page. Then added the title to each column: Name & SKU, None, Base, Wash, Brown Liner, Blue Liner.

 

Spoiler

 

That's as far as I've gotten. Next I plan on starting to fill out paint names and SKU's. Then I will prime the squares with some plain white brush on primer (Vallejo in this case). I'm really hoping that the paper is thick enough to avoid the water from just being absorbed. If it isn't I will go to the craft store and buy a better book with different paper and can use this for something else later. 

 

Each column is a different thickness of paint/what I'll be putting it over. So None is straight out of the bottle, Base is thinned enough for a base coat, Wash is thinned down to a wash consistency, and Brown and Blue Liner will have each of them put over the primer and then a base consistency paint over that. 

 

I'm going to spend some time filling out the names and SKU's and then I'll get to priming the squares. Might go back and go over the lines with a sharpie or pen to make them a little more apparent where the lines are for my sake. 

 

ETA: I already have a spreadsheet of all of the paints I own and then sub-sheets broken down by line/company. I think there is a way to put color samples into the sheet but I've yet to figure it out. So I'm making this so I don't have to pull out all of my paints when I need to color scheme something. I can just pull out the book and go from there. It'll be much more efficient for me.

Edited January 27, 2018 by SparrowMarie

[Green Eyed Monster 24799]

Will be following this.

GEM

[SparrowMarie 19191]

Painted on some primer, this is probably the wrong kind of paper but I'm gonna roll with it for now. Next step is to put down the liners.

[SparrowMarie 19191]

Made the grid more legible with a sharpie. Can't see the primer because white on white. May need another coat of it before I put paint down. Need to figure out where I want to put down what paint line its from, probably with the name and SKU.

[Gadgetman! 15115]

maybe use 3 primers side by side(white, grey and black) since the primer colour can affect the result of the paint?

 

[SparrowMarie 19191]

1 hour ago, Gadgetman! said:

maybe use 3 primers side by side(white, grey and black) since the primer colour can affect the result of the paint?

 

 

I might do that later on, I don't have grey or black primer currently, but I'm using the liners as "primer" since I mostly paint bones. I may shift what column is what but haven't decided yet. 

[Gadgetman! 15115]

Well, you can always use grey and black basecoats, too.

[Pezler the Polychromatic 48830]

When I tried doing this, I took thin boards and spray painted white, grey, and black lines of primer, and then transected them with a line of each color paint. Of course, that was done when I had far fewer paints to be able to do it with.......

[SparrowMarie 19191]

1 minute ago, Pezler the Polychromatic said:

When I tried doing this, I took thin boards and spray painted white, grey, and black lines of primer, and then transected them with a line of each color paint. Of course, that was done when I had far fewer paints to be able to do it with.......

 

i haven't updated my spreadsheet to include what I got today and I suspect I'm missing some more other than that but the thing says I have about 300 bottles of paint including doubles and in some cases triples.

[Gadgetman! 15115]

Have you considered using strips of cardboard or plastic instead of large sheets?

 

Then it would be easier to compare paints when planning a paintscheme, just pick the ones you're considering and lay them next to each other.

 

 

[SparrowMarie 19191]

7 minutes ago, Gadgetman! said:

Have you considered using strips of cardboard or plastic instead of large sheets?

 

i have not. I generally do a general paint scheme in my head and then pull out the caddies of paints and compare what I picked to what it actually looks like and adjust as needed. Also, probably don't have space to keep cardboard or plastic. This is only a 7"x10", it definitely looks larger in the photos,  book so I can keep it in a drawer without much issue. 

[Gadgetman! 15115]

I was thinking of using 15mm wide 150mm long strips of 0.5mm A4 plasticard.(or 0.25mm if I can find it) I expect to get 28 strips from each sheet. 

(Just another of my projects that I'll probably never ever get done... )

 

[SparrowMarie 19191]

Testing brown liner on some scrap paper. I'm trying to find what ratio of liner to my water/flow aid mix. In thinking it'll be the third stripe which is a 5:2. Will test it on a mini before I commit to it.

[SparrowMarie 19191]

I figured out my ratios and put liner to paper. I switched the columns around, still not sure if I'm happy with the order but it's too late to change it now.

[SparrowMarie 19191]

Putting paint to the paper. Might need to add something as I continue to actually show exactly how much it covers. Any suggestions as to what to use to show it is greatly appreciated. Will most likely do that after this page since its the furthest I've drawn up. 

 

The paper seems to be holding up well. A little bit of curling but it did that after the primer dried.