I used only the eight paints in my Whiskers professional set for this roadside sketch. The five I reached for most are swatched down the left edge: 105 Jaune Brillant No. 1, 138 Lavender, 171 Yellow Gray, 166 Green Gray and 390 Neutral Tint. A little of the other three found its way into the mixtures too.

The sketch and its five main colours

What these eight colours can do

I often pair lavender with a light, bright yellow for skies. Here the pale blue-violet gives way to a little warmth above the trees. Mixing the house and the road from the same small group brought the colours together. I like that quietness, though for my everyday landscapes I would use this set to supplement my palette. When I want a clear yellow or a warmer accent, the range feels limited. It suits landscapes where I choose the colours for myself.

The painting, brush and eight tubes on my desk

A little paint goes a long way on a small sheet

On the paper these paints feel rather creamy and chalky to me. A thicker stroke has something of the body of oil paint. There is also room to scrape marks into a thicker passage with a palette knife. I sketched lightly in pencil on Baohong fine-grained 300 gsm paper, then used one Chinese brush called Tianqing for nearly all the painting. I think the maker was Rongzhai.

The glaze I left off

Stepping back, the sky looked a little too bright, the trees and road too dark. The hues belonged together, but the sky and the ground did not quite share the same atmosphere. I thought about laying a glaze across them. If it lifted the colour underneath, though, I could lose the separate marks I liked in the trees and road. I decided to leave them. Next time I would watch that difference in value a little earlier.