Watercolor Mixing Notes That Connect Each Mix with Its Dried Swatch

Give each swatch a label you can find again

If several squares contain yellow mixed with blue, ‘green’ may not distinguish them. Label the squares A1 and A2 on the paper and repeat those names in your photo notes. A picture of the whole sheet shows where each square belongs; a closer view lets you revisit that particular sample.

Record the product and color names you checked on the tubes or pans, as far as you know them. Include the paper type only where known too. Similar-looking colors on a palette do not establish that two products are the same paint, and a forgotten color number can remain unknown.

Make a swatch record you can return to

1. 1

   Identify the paper and square you will paint, and write recognizable names for the paints used.

2. 2

   Connect one mixed pool of paint with its swatch, noting the order of changes if you add water or another color.

3. 3

   Record the wet appearance, then add another observation if you revisit the same square after it dries.

4. 4

   Give a fresh mixing attempt a different label rather than assuming it exactly reproduces an earlier swatch.

Describe approximate amounts as approximate

Picking up each color once with a brush is different from measuring precise volumes. ‘Started with yellow, then added a little blue; ratio not measured’ can still preserve the process. Do not copy numbers from a suggested mixing chart as though they were the proportions you used.

A fictional editorial example is ‘A1: mixed yellow paint N with blue paint B / added blue second / amounts not measured.’ If you later add water to that same mix and paint square A2, describe it as a change continuing from A1. Distinguish it from B1, mixed afresh. If you paint another color over the dry A1 square, label it ‘layered over A1’ rather than treating it as a palette mix.

Connect wet and dry views of the same square

A1 photographed before drying and A1 photographed afterward are two observations of the same square. Keep its label so the pictures do not become two new mixes in the record. Note when you checked the dry sample without assigning an exact drying duration you did not measure.

If the sample looks lighter to you on returning, write that impression. Add any changes in lighting or capture conditions you know about. A photo alone does not establish how much a paint always lightens or that it produces the same result on every paper.

Add a note about the physical sample when the photo looks different

The color on your phone may seem different from the paper in front of you. Note the impression from that comparison: ‘Physical sample looks less blue than the photo.’ A color value extracted from an image should not be treated as a standard measurement of the actual paint.

To try making an earlier color again, refer to the paint names and swatch notes and begin a new attempt. Even with paints of the same name, note unknown amounts or a change of paper. Your personal chart is working material, rather than a standard guaranteeing color accuracy or exact reproduction.

Add swatch labels and mixing notes to the day's photos

Keep the chart you made and its mixing process together in Pogaem photos, titles, and notes. A title could be ‘Watercolor chart A,’ with ‘A1 wet / A1 after drying / B1 fresh mix’ in the text. For several pictures, write which square and state each shows.

This method does not depend on Pogaem calculating paint ratios or correcting photo colors. Keep the paper chart yourself and leave clues in the diary for finding it again. If you use a mix in a piece, one line can connect the artwork's name with the swatch you actually used.