The Night Forest Palette by Karen Elaine

This is one of those collaborations that just feels… right.

Because Karen is the kind of artist who doesn’t just use watercolors. She lives in them. She has this way of making greens look like they have air in them, and blues look like they’re carrying weather. Her work feels joyful and grounded at the same time, and honestly, it makes you want to paint even if you swore you were “too tired today.”

So yes. I asked her if she wanted to collaborate. And luckily she said yes.

This set includes eight handmade watercolors, built around Karen’s signature green:

Night Forest (no. 209).
A deep natural green that feels like standing in the quiet part of the woods, where everything smells like needles, bark, and damp earth. It’s the kind of green that makes you paint better than you planned to. Not because it’s dramatic. But because it behaves like real nature.

Here are the colors in the set:

#20 Cyan Blue (Phthalo Blue)
#50 Anthraquinone Blue
#99 Velvet Ultramarine Blue
#114UC Shadow
#209 Night Forest
#243 The Wind
#256 Sirens Gold
#290 Olive

The palette is built to give you range. You can go moody. You can go fresh. You can go full forest. You can also do skies, shadows, ocean depth, botanicals, and that kind of loose everyday watercolor where you “just test something” and suddenly it’s been two hours and you forgot to eat.

And like always: every color is handcrafted by me at Art to Basic with eco friendly ingredients, because I like paint that behaves properly, rewets properly, and actually feels good to use.

Working with artists like Karen is my favorite part of what I do. It’s paint, yes. But it’s also connection. It’s sharing the exact colors someone loves, and then watching other people fall in love with them too.