Is Your Cat Safe This Summer? Heat, Smoke, and Evacuation Prep

Where we live, it is very hot—over one hundred degrees—and there is smoke from forest fires everywhere. It led my wife and me to do research on how to keep our cats safe. We are lucky that no fires are threatening where we live, but we have had friends with issues this year. So, I put together some information to help you better care for your cat during the hot summer months and during fire season.

8 Ways to Keep Cats Cool in Summer

The temperatures are rising, and it can only mean one thing—the long days of summer are here. While our canine pals frolic in sprinklers, what's a cat to do but seek out the coolest corner of the bathroom floor? From semi-friendly outdoor cats searching for shade to indoor cats loafing about, knowing how to keep cats cool in the summer is essential to their health.

"Cats that have any health issues or older cats are very prone to serious health conditions caused by the heat," says Dr. Sarah McCormack, DVM at Northwest Neighborhood Veterinary Hospital in Portland, Oregon. She adds that any cat could experience dehydration, heat exhaustion, or heatstroke when temperatures teeter toward 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

1. Swap the Water Bowl for a Fountain: Cats are notorious for not drinking enough water. Swapping their still water for a cat water fountain replicates a natural running water source that entices them to drink. Other options for encouraging hydration without spending extra money include adding a splash of sardine water or tuna water to their bowl, or encouraging them to drink from a running bathroom faucet.

2. Get a Cooling Mat: If you don't have AC, a cooling mat can do the trick. Just make sure it's made to withstand cat nails, or trim your cat's nails before use.

3. Swap Dry Food for Wet Food: Wet food packs up to 66% more water than dry food, helping prevent dehydration. Try chilling the wet food in the fridge before serving to see if your cat likes cold food (though some prefer room temperature).

4. Grooming & Coat Care: "A lion cut can provide a lot of comfort to a cat, especially long-haired cats," Dr. McCormack says. For indoor-outdoor cats with a short cut, consider a pet-safe sunscreen or a UV shirt to protect their skin from sunburn.

   • Note on Shaving: Some research suggests shaving your cat to help with heat, while other sources warn that a cat's coat actually acts as insulation against extreme heat and UV rays. Because every cat is different, it is best to contact your veterinarian to know what is right for your own cat.

5. Provide Airflow: If you don't have AC, cracking open windows and turning on a fan can work on moderately hot days. When temps push toward triple digits, consider a portable AC unit or seeking out a cat-friendly hotel with air conditioning.

6. Apply Cool Water to Her Paws: Cats cool slightly with the evaporation of sweat through their paw pads. If you are concerned your cat is hot, putting cool water on her paws helps her cool down.

7. Give Experienced Bathers a Cool Bath: If your cat is a pro at bath time, a cool bath can help. However, stress can exacerbate health conditions, so if your cat isn't used to baths, a record-setting hot day is not the time to try it.

8. Provide Outdoor Cats a Cool Spot: For neighborhood or feral cats, share fresh water and wet food in a shady spot. If there is no shade, set up a summer cat house that is open on the sides to allow maximum airflow (Jacklyn Ellis, Director of Behavior at Toronto Humane Society).

Signs Your Cat is Too Hot or Dehydrated

Heat exhaustion is the beginning phase of heatstroke. When a cat feels too hot, she may refuse food, hide, or pant. Even indoor cats are at risk without proper precautions. Contact your vet immediately if you notice:

• Panting or open-mouth breathing

• Rapid respiratory rate

• Hot ears

• Bright red tongue

• Dark red or pale gums

• Drooling

• Depression, weakness, or stumbling

• Anxious behavior or vocalization

• Lying on one side, completely stretched out

Dehydration Skin-Tent Test: Lift the skin along your cat's back and drop it. If hydrated, it snaps back quickly. If there is a delay and the skin stays tented up, your cat is dehydrated.

9 Tips to Keep Your Cat Safe from Wildfires & Smoke

Wildfires are common across the US and typically occur from spring to fall, particularly in dry areas. Pets can be just as affected by smoke as humans, and if you need to evacuate, they add a layer of complexity. Planning ahead is key.

Is wildfire smoke dangerous for cats? Yes—wildfire smoke irritates a cat's eyes and lungs just as much as human lungs. Animals with respiratory or cardiovascular disease are at higher risk, but all animals can be affected if smoke is severe.

1. Pack a Pet Emergency Kit: Always have an emergency kit ready for natural disasters containing:

   • Pet carrier for each cat

   • Two-week supply of food and water

   • Medications and dosing instructions

   • Pet first-aid kit

   • Non-spill food and water bowls

   • Cat litter box and litter

   • Plastic bags for waste disposal, paper towels, and disinfectants

   • Extra leashes, collars, blankets, toys, and treats

2. Know Your Evacuation Options: Not all emergency shelters accept pets. Make a plan for where you can go (pet-friendly hotels or friends) well in advance. Microchip your cats and make arrangements with neighbors to check on or transport your pets if you are away when disaster strikes.

3. Monitor Air Quality: Check air quality alerts at AirNow.gov. If alerts advise limiting outdoor activity for humans, keep your pets strictly inside as well.

4. Keep Cats Indoors: Close all doors and windows to keep smoke out. If your cats cannot safely have the run of the house, bring them into a bathroom, bedroom, or safe room with adequate ventilation.

5. Monitor Your Cat's Breathing: Watch for coughing, gagging, trouble breathing, noisy breathing, fatigue, weakness, reduced appetite, nasal discharge, red/watery eyes, or disorientation. Contact a vet immediately if these occur.

6. Avoid Heavy Exercise: Skip intense play sessions during smoke events. Make sure your cat has a litter box inside so they don't need to go outdoors.

7. Create a Clean Room: If you have central AC or window units, buy high-efficiency filters to capture fine smoke particles. You can also run a portable HEPA air cleaner in a designated room.

8. Keep Indoor Air Clean: Avoid adding indoor air pollution during a wildfire. Do not fry or broil food, burn scented candles, use wood stoves, or smoke cigarettes inside while smoke is outside.

9. Always Include Your Pets in Your Evacuation Plan: Ideally, use a carrier or pet backpack. If an extreme emergency forces you to leave pets behind, place them in a clean, preselected room with enough food, water, and litter. Never confine a cat in a crate or leave them outside without access to food, water, and shade, and return for them the moment it is safe.

Research Articles & Sources Referenced

• Summer Safety for Cats: Essential Tips to Keep Your Feline Safe by Janelle Leeson / NASC

• 9 Tips to Keep Your Cat Safe from Wildfire Smoke by Nicole Cosgrove (Director of Content Management at Catster)

• Pet Fire Safety: Top Strategies for Emergencies / The Spruce Pets

• Veterinary Experts Consulted: Dr. Sarah McCormack, DVM (Northwest Neighborhood Veterinary Hospital) & Dr. Jacklyn Ellis (Director of Behavior, Toronto Humane Society)

My wife and I here at Serenity of the Mind hope you and your cats or other pets stay safe this year. Please take a look at our YouTube channel @serenityofthemind where you can find funny cat compilations and other fun videos. You can also visit our store at store.serenityofthemind.com to find hand-mulled watercolor backgrounds, speech bubbles, and digital graphics ready to use in any of your creative projects!

  Learn how to protect your cats during extreme summer heat, high temperatures, and wildfire smoke season. Includes emergency evacuation prep, cooling tips, and pet safety advice from veterinary experts.

Showing Off Our Cat Shorts (and How We Make Them)

 Showing Off Our Cat Shorts (and How We Make Them)

We are now putting our shorts on our blog. It is very hard with the way the algorithm is these days for us to show off our cat shorts, so today I am showing you a few that you might like.

Funny Cats: Cats Being Cats #shorts

This is the first one Shy Artist made a hand-painted watercolor background for. We couldn’t find good backgrounds anymore, and we felt that YouTube was changing. But she had not painted any speech bubbles yet, so we were still using the speech bubbles from Canva or Pixabay. It started not to be as easy to use Canva like it used to be, and we couldn’t get good transparencies at the time, which is important if you are going to make your own speech bubbles. I always like to add words to the kitties and make funny sound effects if it fits the video. The cat hit and run was one of those cat clips that really needed a car screech and then a collision sound. Back then, I got all of my sound effects from Pixabay. Eventually, I would have to get sound effects somewhere else. I ended up paying for them because I needed to have a license I could actually show to YouTube or become whitelisted. Whitelisting is when a company like Uppbeat tells YouTube, "This content creator has a license to use any sound effects or music we have." It protects you when you have a content claim, especially nowadays. YouTube says they don’t punish a channel for having content claims, but I beg to differ, as we have always experienced losing views after a content claim even after presenting them with the license.

Actually, I was wrong—Jan 14, 2026 is when I started using backgrounds painted by Shy Artist. Since we don’t really like showing humans very much, we decided to use the background to show less of the humans so all the focus would be on the cat stealing the koi fish. Also, it makes us look unique, which is very important these days. YouTube can say you are not unique and stop viewers from finding you. The clip with the kitten moving on the ceiling uses one of Shy Artist's Legacy backgrounds. It worked well at allowing us to drop the cat down low enough so you can see the speech bubble. The speech bubble wasn’t Shy Artist’s. We used three of the backgrounds this time.

Funny Cats Naughty Cats and Cute Kitten

I didn’t do any more for a while because I had stopped using Canva and then had to use Clipchamp, and then Clipchamp was going to force me to pay for cloud service even if I didn’t use it. So I was struggling using different free editors that didn’t work well. February 18, 2026 is the second one we did because my son told me about Pixlr and the Resolve editor. Pixlr helped a lot. It took me three months to learn both these new tools to make my videos, but Pixlr was really important because it allowed Shy Artist to make speech bubbles.

If you liked any of the backgrounds that were used in these cat compilations, they are sold on store.serenityofthemind.com. They are reasonably priced. Shy Artist, who is also my wife, feels as we use them ourselves, we can give people a break.

Making Watercolor Medium: The Clean, Natural Way

Click on the Youtube emblem at the bottom right corner above.

Medium is the name of the liquid we watercolor artists make so the ground pigments will stick to the watercolor paper. I have been changing my art studio over from the toxic commercial paints to ones I make myself.

In my latest video, "Making Watercolor Medium," I show you how to mix your own binder from scratch using food-grade, natural ingredients. If you’ve ever wondered what is actually inside commercial watercolor tubes—and why making your own is a game-changer for a non-toxic studio—let’s pull back the curtain.

What’s Inside: Your Handmade Binder vs. Store-Bought

While high-end commercial paints still use gum arabic, many modern mass-produced or student-grade paints rely on synthetic substitutes, petroleum-derived moisturizers, and harsh preservatives to survive years in hot warehouses and on store shelves.

Here is how a natural, handmade recipe compares to what is often hidden in commercial tubes:

1. The Glue (The Binder)

• Commercial Paints: Many brands (especially student-grade) swap out pure gum arabic for Dextrin, a cheap processed starch made from corn or potato. While it works, dextrin can dry with a dull, matte, or slightly chalky finish.

• Your Handmade Way: Pure, natural Gum Arabic—the hardened sap of the Acacia tree. It is completely non-toxic (it's actually used in food and candy!) and rewets like a dream.

2. The Moisturizer (Keeping it Soft)

• Commercial Paints: To keep the paint from drying into rock-hard, un-brushable bricks, commercial paints often use Polyethylene Glycol (PEG), a synthetic, petroleum-based liquid.

• Your Handmade Way: Natural Vegetable Glycerin combined with real Honey. Honey is nature's perfect humectant; it keeps the paint moist, adds a beautiful natural gloss, and helps the paint flow smoothly across the paper.

3. The Preservative

• Commercial Paints: Because wet paint in a tube can easily harbor mold or bacteria, factories use powerful synthetic biocides (like parabens or phenoxyethanol). These can be harsh on sensitive skin.

• Your Handmade Way: A couple of drops of pure Clove Oil. Clove oil is naturally rich in eugenol, a powerful organic fungicide that prevents mold and bacteria from growing in your paint. Plus, it makes your studio smell absolutely amazing!

Comparison at a Glance

Ingredient	Your Handmade Binder	Modern Commercial Binder
The Base	Pure Gum Arabic (Acacia sap)	Dextrin (processed starch)
The Humectant	Natural Honey & Glycerin	Synthetic Glycols (petroleum-based)
The Preservative	Natural Clove Oil	Synthetic Biocides (harsh chemicals)

Is Making Your Own Paint Better for You and the Earth?

Absolutely. When you control your medium and choose to paint with natural earth pigments and clays rather than heavy-metal-based paints, you are making a massive difference.

Avoiding Toxic Heavy Metals

Many traditional commercial colors rely on heavy metals to get their bright hues. Paints like Cadmiums, Cobalts, and Chromiums carry warnings because they can be harmful if inhaled as dry dust, and they accumulate in your body over time.

By mulling your own paint, you can choose to work exclusively with safe, natural earths—like Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, and Terre Verte. These are simply natural clays and iron oxides dug directly from the ground. They are completely safe to handle and contain zero heavy metals.

 A Note on Studio Safety: Even when working with safe, non-toxic earth clays, dry pigment powder is incredibly fine and easily airborne. Always wear safety goggles to protect your eyes and a simple mask (like an N95) when scoop-measuring your dry powders, so you don't breathe in the dust or get it in your eyes before it gets wet!

 Know Your Source: When sourcing natural earth pigments, only buy from reputable suppliers who third-party test their pigments for heavy metals and contaminants. Because earth pigments are dug out of the ground, they are only as safe as the soil they came from. Look for companies that certify their pigments pass strict heavy metal safety standards (like the EN71-3 toy safety certification, which ensures they are free from toxic metal migration). Never use random, untested raw dirt or cheap industrial pigments in your home studio!

The Environmental "Sink" Problem

Whenever we wash our paintbrushes, the leftover paint goes down the drain.

• The Food Chain Connection: Heavy metals like cadmium do not biodegrade. In 2013, Sweden actually attempted to ban cadmium in artists' paints. A scientific study submitted to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) showed that when artists wash brushes under the tap, those heavy metals end up in wastewater treatment sludge. Because that sludge is often used as fertilizer on agricultural fields, those metals can slowly leach into agricultural soil and enter the food chain.

• The Biodegradable Solution: When you use a handmade binder (sap, honey, glycerin, water) mixed with tested, natural earth clays, your leftover paint water is 100% biodegradable. It can go down the drain—or even be poured out on your garden flowers—with absolutely zero harm to the environment.

 References & Further Reading:

• On Paint Chemistry & Ingredients: Handprint: Watercolor Materials and Chemistry (Bruce MacEvoy) details the use of synthetic glycols, dextrin fillers, and traditional gum arabic solutions.

• On Clove Oil as an Art Preservative: Natural Pigments / Rublev Colours documentation on the properties of Eugenol (clove oil) as a historical and non-toxic watercolor preservative.

• On Cadmium & Wastewater Impact: Scientific dossier: Significance of cadmium from artists' paints to agricultural soil and the food chain (ECHA / PubMed Central PMC5044963), detailing how brush rinsing impacts sewage sludge and agricultural soils.

Ready to start making your own?

Check out my video "Making Watercolor Medium" to watch the exact steps, and grab your natural ingredients to start building a safer, cleaner, and more eco-friendly art practice today!

Our new store is store.serenityofthemind.com   our new pinterest is https://www.pinterest.com/storeserenityofthemind/

Moving to Our New Pinterest!

 Moving to Our New Pinterest!

Four years ago, when we first started, our store was hosted right on our blog. Back then, we kept a single Pinterest account to cover our blog, our channel, and our store all at once. Over time, however, we began to feel that having everything mixed together made it hard for people to truly appreciate the art—there was just too much other content competing for attention.

Now, focusing our store specifically on Pinterest is going incredibly well! Visitors can easily view all the artwork in one clean space, with a direct path straight to the store whenever they find something they love.

We also have some beautiful new assets available in the shop! Click the links below to view the items you like:

Summer Zephyr - Hand-Mulled Watercolor Paint: Digital Backdrop (Yellow and White)

$5.00

Elevate your digital space with a professional background from the Hand-Mulled Watercolor Paint collection. Created by Shy Artist, this piece brings the beauty of traditional, handmade art to your digital projects.

What is a Hand-Mulled Pigment Watercolor background? Unlike standard, commercial watercolor, creating this background is a slow, multi-day process. It features a custom blend of raw pigments, mulled by hand using a vibrant mix of Brilliant Yellow and White on professional-grade watercolor paper.

The paint is applied in successive washes, with each layer drying for a full 24 hours before the next is added. This patient process allows the hand-mulled pigments to settle beautifully onto the paper, creating a depth and organic texture that digital filters and AI simply cannot replicate.

• Perfect For:

  • Content Creation: Calm YouTube videos, Shorts, TikToks, and Reels.

  • Design Assets: Professional video overlays, YouTube titles, and blog headers.

  • Tech Aesthetics: 4K/HD Desktop and Mobile wallpapers.

• Product Details & Licensing:

  • Artist: Shy Artist

  • Color Palette: Hand-Mulled Brilliant Yellow and White Pigments

  • Process: 100% Hand-Mulled Watercolor Paint on Professional Paper (Multi-Day Layered Wash)

  • Format: High-Resolution Digital Download (Includes both Long and Short formats)

  • License: Personal & Commercial License included. (Note: Re-selling or redistributing the digital files themselves is not permitted.)

Digital Graphic Elements: Hand-Painted Pink Watercolor Speech Bubble Collection (Set of 6)

$10.00

The Craft Behind the Art These are not standard digital graphics. Each of these six speech bubbles was created using a custom watercolor blend of professional Daniel Smith red mixed with hand-mulled white pigment. Combining these elements captures a beautiful, authentic depth of texture and organic blooming that brings a soft, hand-crafted energy to digital spaces.

These assets are provided as large-scale files specifically so you can scale them down for your blog or video projects without losing a single grain of the genuine pigment texture.

• Included Shapes (Set of 6):

  • Round speech bubble (pointing up-right)

  • Round speech bubble (pointing up-left)

  • Round speech bubble (pointing down-right)

  • Round speech bubble (pointing down-left)

  • Action/Burst speech bubble

  • Rectangle speech bubble

• What You Can Use It For:

  • Video Production: Use them as unique text overlays, captions, or dialogue boxes in video edits and shorts.

  • Blogging & Websites: Accentuate key quotes, callouts, or sidebar highlights on your website.

  • Digital Journaling & Scrapbooking: Brighten up your digital planner layouts with high-quality artistic stickers.

  • Social Media Graphics: Create eye-catching posts, stories, and graphics that stand out in a crowded feed.

• Product Details & Licensing:

  • Artist: Shy Artist

  • Style: Hand-painted watercolor with organic blooming and natural pigment texture.

  • Format: 6 High-resolution digital files with transparent backgrounds (PNG).

  • License: Personal & Commercial License included. (Note: Re-selling or redistributing the digital files themselves is strictly prohibited.)

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

 

Seijaku: Calm in Chaos

store.serenityofthemind.com

This link will take you to our Store, where you may download  a free copy of the above Kanji, without the "Copyright" or "Preview Only" marking.

Earlier this year, I did a blog piece about the intense energy of the Year of the Fire Horse (you can read it here). When I recently came across the word Seijaku (静寂), it hit me immediately: this is the exact antidote we all need for the chaos of this year.

To bring this concept to life, Shy Artist mulled raw ultramarine blue pigments into watercolor medium, creating a lovely, deep color perfectly suited for the Japanese Kanji for Seijaku. You can get this printable calligraphy for free at the Serenity of the Mind Store. Hang it on your wall as a daily reminder of calm in the midst of chaos.

But what does Seijaku truly mean? It is much deeper than just sitting in a quiet room.

The Art of Energized Calm

In the West, we often view peace as something passive—the absence of noise. Seijaku, however, is a dynamic, energized calm. It is the still point at the center of a spinning wheel, or the quiet eye of a storm.

Its origins run deep into Japanese history and culture:

• The Way of the Samurai: Centuries ago, samurai trained extensively in this mindset to maintain absolute composure, clarity, and decisive action in high-pressure situations and the literal chaos of battle.

• The Architecture of Stillness: In medieval Japan, tea master Sen no Rikyū designed tea houses with deliberately low doors, forcing guests to bow, slow down, and leave the hectic world behind. The spaces were acoustically crafted so that sound was absorbed, creating a silence that wasn't empty, but "pregnant with awareness."

• The Sound that Deepens Silence: In Japanese Zen gardens, a single drop of water fills a bamboo tube (shishi-odoshi) until it tips, strikes a rock with a sharp clack, and returns to stillness. That lone sound doesn't break the tranquility—it makes the silence audible.

Carrying Calm with You

Seijaku is closely related to ma (間), the Japanese concept of the space between objects or the pause between musical notes. It emphasizes creating purposeful pockets of space in our daily routine.

When life’s pressures mount, our instinct is to rush, react, and try to fix everything at once. Seijaku teaches us that inner calm comes from doing less, not more. It is about acceptance—not surrendering to chaos, but accepting that chaos is a natural part of the flow of life. When you stop resisting it, it loses its power over you.

By practicing this active calm, you get five incredible benefits:

1. Reduces Stress & Anxiety: It allows you to step back and observe your thoughts without letting them overpower you.

2. Increases Focus: It trains the mind to remain entirely present on a single task.

3. Improves Sleep Quality: Quietly reflecting and letting go of the day's worries prepares the body for rest.

4. Boosts Emotional Well-being: It acts as a daily "reset button," allowing you to move forward with reason rather than raw emotion.

5. Enhances Creativity: Quieting the external noise creates an empty space for intuition, new ideas, and watercolor inspiration to surface like koi rising in a still pond.

True silence isn't the absence of sound—it's the presence of everything you've been too noisy to hear.

The next time life feels overwhelming, remember Seijaku. Take a deep breath, retreat into your inner sanctuary, and move forward with quiet strength.

References & Deep Digs

If you want to read more about the history and daily practice of Seijaku, check out the wonderful resources that helped inspire this post:

• Umbrex: Tools for Thinking – Seijaku: The Art of Energized Calm in the Midst of Chaos. This guide breaks down how dynamic tranquility helps us balance a heavy load of work and family without feeling completely scattered.

• Medium / Personal Growth – The Wisdom of Seijaku. A beautiful personal look at using "active calm" to pause, embrace reality instead of fighting it, and clear out both physical and mental clutter.

• Zen Principles Glossary – A deep dive into the Japanese aesthetic traditions, explaining how zazen meditation makes this inner stillness portable enough to carry right into daily traffic or hard conversations.

• Core Confidence Lifestyle – 5 Benefits of Seijaku Meditation. An excellent breakdown of the historical links to ancient samurai training and how the practice scientifically reduces stress and sharpens focus.

• Satori Daily – The Fullness Found in Complete Stillness. A fascinating history of how tea master Sen no Rikyū architecturally built pockets of profound quiet into his 15th-century tea houses.

The History of Payne’s Gray

 

The History of Payne’s Gray

I am mulling Payne’s Gray for a background and also for the edging of some plain speech bubbles that are going to be white in the center. Hand-mulling your own paint takes a lot of patience, but it allows you to control the exact texture and binder ratio for specific projects. For these speech bubbles, I needed an outline color that has a strong presence but isn't as harsh or flattening as a straight carbon black. I hope you enjoy this video and tell me how you use Payne’s Gray in your projects in the comments below.

I finished mulling one of my recipes for Payne’s Gray. It came out like a dark Navy Blue, and I thought I failed until I saw a video by Paul Clark on YouTube. When you are working on a glass slab, raw pigment mixtures can look completely different in bulk than they do when spread out in a fine layer on paper. Here is the link on YouTube so you can see it for yourself: How to Paint a Fisherman in Watercolour. In that video I saw that I didn't fail because he showed side by side how each company's Payne's Gray looks different. It was a huge relief to see his side-by-side demonstration because it proves that Payne's Gray isn't a single pure pigment—it’s a convenience blend that shifts from stormy blue to charcoal depending on the brand.

Payne's Gray: Detailed Research Summary

1. Who Was William Payne?

Payne's Gray was created in the late 18th century by the British watercolorist and tutor William Payne (born 1760). He was a pioneer who moved watercolor away from rigid, mapped lines into a softer, more atmospheric style. Like a historic predecessor to modern step-by-step painting instructors, he popularized quick, effective textures, such as using a split wet brush for foliage or the side of a dry brush for rocks. While serious critics of his era sometimes dismissed his techniques as "too easy," his methods opened up the joy of watercolor to everyday students.

2. The Original Recipe vs. Modern Blends

William Payne originally developed the color as a less intense alternative to stark black for his students. Pure black can create "dead spots" in a painting, whereas a mixed neutral keeps the shadows vibrant.

• The Historic Recipe: A mix of Prussian Blue (or Indigo), Yellow Ochre, and Crimson Lake.

• The Modern Recipes: Today, because it is a "convenience blend," manufacturers use entirely different formulas. Most combine a blue (like Ultramarine, Phthalo, or Indigo) with a carbon-based black (like Lamp Black or Ivory Black). Some lines even mix Ultramarine with Burnt Sienna or add a touch of red/violet to balance the temperature and mimic the original tone.

3. Why Every Watercolor Company's Payne's Gray is Different

Because there is no single, standard "Payne's Gray pigment," every paint manufacturing company creates its own custom formulation. This means buying a tube from one brand will give you a completely different visual result than a tube from another.

• Winsor & Newton: Leans toward a traditional, very clean, ink-like blue-gray. It uses Phthalo Blue and a touch of violet to keep the undertone crisp and non-granulating.

• Daniel Smith: Leans toward a dark, earthy storm blue. They include Yellow Ochre in their mixture, which gives it a moody, granular character that replicates the original historic recipe's warmth.

• Schmincke Horadam: Known for using a granulating black base, resulting in a deep indigo-shadow look where the pigments visibly separate on textured paper.

• Maimeri Blu: Uses a highly transparent dual-pigment blend of Ultramarine and Lamp Black. When diluted, the bright blue easily breaks away from the black at the edges of the wash.

• Holbein: Formulas vary, but they often lean far more neutral and desaturated, acting almost like a soft charcoal or a cool black rather than a bright blue-gray.

4. Visual Characteristics, Mixing, & Permanence

In heavy masstone applications, Payne's Gray looks nearly black, but it reveals beautiful blue or lilac undertones when diluted into a soft wash. Historically, it was used extensively to create atmospheric perspective, giving objects in the middle distance a sense of depth, fog, and distance.

When mixing on your palette, keep in mind that because it already contains two or three pigments, adding further colors can quickly lead to earthy, muted "muddy" tones. However, this is actually an asset when you need to paint deep, leafy foliage, shadow cast across a landscape, or moody, wet-on-wet stormy skies.

If you want Serenity of the Mind's Payne Gray you can get it at store.serenityofthemind

Resources

• Video Reference: Clark, Paul. "How to Paint a Fisherman in Watercolour." YouTube. Watch here.

• Historical Article: Hatch, Evie. "The Unexpected History of Payne’s Grey." Jackson's Art Blog. (Updated March 31, 2026).

• Biographical Overview: "Meet William Payne: The Painter Behind Payne’s Grey Pigment." WatercolorPainting.com.

• Encyclopedia Reference: Wikipedia contributors. "Payne's grey." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

• meta description: Why does Payne’s Gray vary so much between brands? Discover the history of William Payne's formula and how to successfully hand-mull your own custom recipes.

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