For watercolor artists who adore painting flowers, gardens, and lush botanical scenes, the DANIEL SMITH Floral: Cottage Gardens to Botanicals – Half Pan Set is a dream come true. This carefully curated collection of six vibrant and versatile colors provides everything you need to capture the delicate beauty of petals, leaves, and stems with depth and luminosity.

Each hue in this set is handpicked to offer a balanced and dynamic palette for floral watercolor painting. Here’s what makes each shade special:

Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue

A bright and warm yellow, perfect for sunlit petals, stamens, and glowing highlights. Its opacity and intensity make it an essential base for mixing natural greens and oranges.

Quinacridone Gold

This rich, golden hue brings warmth and radiance to any floral painting. It works beautifully for deep yellow flowers, rich autumnal tones, and as a mixer for earthy greens when combined with blues.

Quinacridone Rose

A stunning, bold pink with a slight cool undertone, Quinacridone Rose is excellent for roses, tulips, and exotic blooms. When mixed with Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, it creates luscious oranges, and with Phthalo Blue (Green Shade), it forms deep purples and violets.

Phthalo Blue (Green Shade)

A powerhouse blue with incredible transparency and vibrancy, this shade is a must-have for painting shadows, skies, and cooling down warm colors in floral compositions. Its mixing capabilities make it an essential in any botanical artist’s toolkit

Cascade Green

This granulating green shifts between a deep, earthy forest green and a vibrant blue-green wash. Ideal for painting foliage, stems, and background greenery, Cascade Green brings a natural, organic feel to botanical work.

Green Apatite Genuine

A unique and highly granulating natural pigment, Green Apatite Genuine offers rich olive and mossy tones, perfect for realistic leaves, vines, and textured plant life. Its ability to separate and create multi-tonal washes adds depth to any composition.

• Versatility – With just six colors, you can create an entire floral spectrum, from soft pastels to rich, dramatic contrasts.
• Vibrancy & Transparency – These colors maintain their brilliance while allowing delicate layering and glazing.

• Granulation Magic – The inclusion of Green Apatite Genuine and Cascade Green introduces wonderful textures and natural-looking effects.

• Portability – The half-pan format is ideal for artists who love to paint on location in gardens or nature settings.

This set is designed to bring vibrant florals and lush greenery to life with just six versatile colors. Whether you’re painting soft, romantic cottage gardens or bold, tropical botanicals, this set offers endless mixing possibilities.

1. Roses & Peonies – The Quinacridone Rose in this set is perfect for painting bright, fresh roses, peonies, and other pink-toned blooms. Mixing it with Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue creates warm coral shades, ideal for delicate petals.

2. Lavender & Wisteria – Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) can be mixed with Quinacridone Rose to create soft purples for lavender sprigs, wisteria draping, or even lilacs. Adjusting the water ratio gives you everything from deep violet to airy pastels.

3. Sunflowers & Marigolds – The warm and radiant Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue is great for painting sunny flowers like daisies, sunflowers, or marigolds. Add a touch of Quinacridone Rose for a rich orange hue or mix with Quinacridone Gold for a warm, earthy golden tone.

4. Poppies & Hibiscus – The combination of Quinacridone Rose and Quinacridone Gold gives you fiery reds and rich pinks, perfect for vibrant poppies, hibiscus, and exotic blooms.

5. Delicate Wildflowers – For soft, whimsical wildflowers like cosmos or anemones, mix Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue and Quinacridone Rose in light washes. Adding Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) can create gentle mauve or blue undertones for shadowing.

Even though this set includes two greens, you can increase the range of greens available by mixing your own—giving you control over the exact shade and temperature of your foliage.

1. Bright Spring Greens – Mixing Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue with Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) results in a vibrant, fresh green, perfect for new leaves and soft springtime foliage. Adjust the ratio for warmer or cooler tones.

2. Earthy Olive & Sage Greens – Add Quinacridone Gold to your green mix to create muted, natural greens reminiscent of sage, eucalyptus, and aged foliage.

3. Deep Forest & Shadowed Greens – For deeper greens suitable for ivy, ferns, and darker botanical elements, mix Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) with Quinacridone Gold and a touch of Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue to balance it out.

4. Muted, Vintage-Inspired Greens – Softened greens, perfect for botanical illustrations with a vintage feel, can be achieved by mixing Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) and Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue.

By experimenting with water dilution and layering techniques, you can achieve a wide range of botanical hues—making these 6 colors incredibly versatile for painting florals of all kinds.

The DANIEL SMITH Floral: Cottage Gardens to Botanicals – Half Pan Set is a beautifully designed palette for anyone passionate about painting flowers. Whether you’re capturing the softness of a peony, the richness of a rose, or the lush greenery of a wild garden, these colors will bring your botanical art to life with vibrancy and finesse.

Our half pans are always hand- poured, following in the DANIEL SMITH tradition of manufacturing the finest handcrafted paints and products. Hand pouring is highly labor intensive, but it offers the purest form of professional, artist-quality watercolors that rewet quickly and easily with a damp brush. Enjoy the finest pigments in portable half-pan sets that are perfect for travel, plein air work, urban sketching & creating unique color combinations.

Would you like to see these colors in action? Grab a set for yourself and start exploring the endless possibilities of floral watercolor painting!

Want to read even more about this topic? Be sure to check out this fun blog article!