Here’s the 15 colors from the Mint Tin Palette, and why I picked them. I spent longer choosing these colors than it took to build the actual kit!

• PB29 Ultramarine Blue (deep) – Maimeri Blu (Ultramarine Blue Deep). Addicting. Can’t live without it!
• PB27 Iron Blue – Winsor Newton (Prussian Blue). Kind of dull on its own but I love it for greens and neutral mixes.
• PB35 Cobalt Stannate – Winsor Newton (Cerulean Blue). I like how it spreads in washes on its own. Kind of fun for two-color studies with PR101 as well, although hard to handle since both of them are so gritty.
• PB16 Phthalo Turquoise – Maimeri Blu (Turquoise Green). Just a little greener than true cyan, and so fun to wash into skies. The Maimeri Blu version is wonderfully active wet-into-wet.
• Green Apatite Primatek – Daniel Smith (Green Apatite Genuine). A beautiful natural green, and lovely granulation.
• Pbr7 Burnt Umber – Daniel Smith (Burnt Umber). A favorite to mix with PB29. I can happily paint all day with just these two!
• PO48 Quinacridone Gold – Daniel Smith (Quinacridone Burnt Orange). Standing in for Burnt Sienna, and such a rich, natural orange on its own. Makes very lively, not-quite-neutral two-color studies with PB16. (Can you tell I love limited palettes?)
• PY153 Ni Dioxine Yellow – Winsor Newton (New Gamboge, original formula). Just bought a huge tube of this, after hearing of the loss of this wonderful pigment for artist’s use. Wish I had discovered it sooner. It has the range of PY150, but in a sunnier, warmer tone. Like sunshine in a tube, this stuff! Adds a lot of punch to a mixed orange.
• PY150 Ni Azo Yellow – Winsor Newton (Transparent Yellow). Another essential for me, a nearly-neutral yellow. It can go so deep in masstone, but glows so brightly in tints. I love the range!
• PY129 Azomethine Copper – Winsor Newton (Green Gold). Everything Sap Green always wanted to be, but couldn’t measure up. Kind of an odd color in masstone but makes fabulous greens with a deep blue.
• Pbr7 Raw Umber – M. Graham (Raw Umber). A workhorse, also good with deep blues for neutrals. It’s even useful all by itself for value studies.
• PR101 Synthetic Iron Oxide – Maimeri Blu (Venetian Red). Neutralizes half of the blues on this palette, and makes for glowing washes with enough water. It’s gritty, but I’ll deal.
• “Alizarin” Crimson homemade mix: PO73, PR122, PR179 I’ve longed for an alizarin substitute for years, but none of the convenience mixes seemed all that close to me. This is crazy, mixing three (!) pigments, but seems to work, and looks quite close to the real deal. Just a little less saturated than my tube of Grumbacher Academy PR83, probably due to the dullness of PR179. That’s a student grade paint I used as a reference, but the results seem to work. [Edit 2/11/16: See notes below].
• PV19 Quinacridone Rose – Maimeri Blu (Primary Red Magenta). An essential for me. If I only had three colors, this would be one of them!
• PO73 Pyrrole Orange – Winsor Newton (Winsor Orange RS). A component of the “Alizarin” mix below and can warm it up without making mud. Also serves as an eye-popping orange and a stand-in for Cad Red Light, which I don’t like very much.

I didn’t make a complete mixing chart, but wanted to test some specific mixtures. Here’s three of the blues making various greens, neutrals, and purples, with a separate chart of some oranges, and the super-granular neutral made from PR101 and cerulean.

    

[edit 02/11/16] The third chart is my take on Alizarin Crimson. It compares pretty favorably with genuine (and oh-so-fugitive) PR83, but as noted above, it just didn’t work out well for me in practice. Included it here in case anyone wants to try on their own. It paints well, and looks good. I stopped using it because Da Vinci makes such a good Permanent Alizarin with just PV19 that I could not resist the opportunity to achieve the same color with just one pigment.

Originally posted on WetCanvas.com.