The Ultimate 18-Colour Cityscape Watercolour Palette

Cityscapes push watercolour into one of its most dynamic roles. Unlike landscape painting where colour shifts with the season and the sun, a city demands control over materials and mood. It is concrete, steel, glass, brick, shadow, and changing weather. It is the contrast between light and darkness, the difference between wide open skyline and shadowed alley. It is grit and sky and reflective surfaces, and it is always alive.

To paint cities well, the artist doesn’t just need colour. They need structure. They need neutrals that hold architectural shapes. They need shadow colours that are expressive, not dead. They need the ability to push bright lights and signage without losing the urban realism that defines a skyline, a street, or an old stone building.

That is what this 18-colour palette delivers.

Why a city palette needs different priorities than a landscape palette

Landscape colours breathe and soften. City colours harden and define. Urban geometry is angular and structural. Your palette must be able to shift between:

• harsh sunlight on glass

• deep shadows between buildings

• atmospheric haze across skyline

• brickwork and stone

• roadways and asphalt

• reflective windows and signage

• dirty storm-washed streets

This palette is a system of controlled neutrals, expressive chroma, and shadow logic. Where landscape pigments evoke nature, city pigments evoke materials: concrete, clay, steel, chrome, asphalt, brick.

Because of its core pigments, it creates realism without monotony and range without chaos.

The Cityscape 18 Colour List

Lemon Yellow

Quinacridone Gold

Raw Sienna

Pyrrol Red

Quinacridone Rose

Perylene Maroon

Venetian Red

Burnt Sienna

Raw Umber

Burnt Umber

Moonglow

Imperial Purple

Phthalo Blue (Red Shade)

Cobalt Blue

Indanthrone Blue

Indigo

Cobalt Teal Blue

Sap Green

All of these pigments are easily available from professional brands such as Daniel Smith, M. Graham, Sennelier or Jackson’s Art Supplies, which you can browse here:

• Daniel Smith watercolours: https://www.jacksonsart.com/brands/daniel-smith/daniel-smith-watercolor-paint

• M. Graham watercolours: https://www.jacksonsart.com/brands/m-graham-co/m-graham-artists-watercolour-paint

• Sennelier watercolours: https://www.jacksonsart.com/sennelier-watercolour-paint

• Jackson’s professional watercolours: https://www.jacksonsart.com/watercolour-paint-artist-professional

The role and behavior of these pigments in an urban environment

In a city palette, the earth pigments are not a background material — they are the backbone. Venetian Red and Burnt Sienna give brick-work granularity. Raw Umber and Burnt Umber deliver aging, grime, wear, and history. Perylene Maroon is the perfect shadow red for an old building, a decaying door frame, or weathered wood.

Where landscapes ask for gentle transitions, cities ask for contrast. The blues reflect this. Cobalt Blue is the soft sky-blue. Phthalo Blue and Indanthrone Blue are the deep-glass reflections and steel-blue shadows. Indigo is the night-sky neutral, the alley-way shadow, the reflective pavement that appears wet long after the rain.

Moonglow becomes the evening light and cloud shadow between buildings. Imperial Purple represents signage, nightlife, neon, or small accents of colour that urban scenes rely on. Cobalt Teal Blue in this case is the softer accent — reflected water in a riverbank city, the hint of oxidised copper rooftops, or sunlit glass.

Finally, Sap Green enters the city not as a natural forest green, but as the colour of rust, aged metal, industrial grime, and wire oxidisation. In an urban palette, greens are dirtier and more controlled, and this palette handles that beautifully.

Master mixes for architecture, streets, concrete & shadow

A city relies on neutrals more than any other subject. But the neutrals must breathe. They must have identity. They cannot be flat. This palette builds neutrals through pigment pairs and trios, not through grey paint.

Here are some mixes to use:

• Concrete and asphalt: Burnt Umber + Indigo. The perfect industrial grey — it reads like roadways and concrete, not clouds or stone.

• Brick walls: Venetian Red + Perylene Maroon. Add water to soften the effect for sunlight, or Moonglow for dusk and shadow.

• Glass reflections: Phthalo Blue + Indigo. Add touches of Cobalt Blue to create a reflective, layered look.

• Shadow edges: Raw Umber + Indanthrone Blue. This mix creates the deep, sharp-edged shadows found in city streets.

• Neon lights: Imperial Purple + Quinacridone Rose. Cities are electric, colourful, energetic. Neon is punctuation, and these pigments do it right.

• Old stone and architecture: Burnt Sienna + Cobalt Blue. This is one of the great classical combinations in watercolour. It produces believable, textured architectural surfaces.

These mixes are repeatable, controllable and reliable — the essential qualities of pigments for architectural painting.

When to use the Cityscape 18 Palette

This palette excels in:

• Urban skyline silhouettes

• Street scenes

• Industrial environments

• Old European architecture

• Grimy nighttime scenes

• Rivers and floodlit bridges

• Historic towns, cobblestones, stone walls

• Modern cities full of metal and glass

Where the landscape palette evokes sunlight and nature, this palette evokes material and mood.

Weaknesses of this palette (and why they’re intentional)

You’ll notice there are no bright greens, few convenience blues, and no multi-pigment opaques. That is by design.

Cities do not rely on bright greens or pure primaries. They rely on reflection and shadow. Greens get dirtier, blues get deeper, and earth tones form the base colours of everything built by people. Eliminating the bright, playful pigments reduces the risk of garishness and forces you to build neutrals the way real cities do — through time, texture and atmosphere.

Why this palette works long-term

Like the landscape palette, this one rewards experience. It reveals more the longer you use it. It gives you the tools to paint modern cities, historic buildings, industrial ports or rain-soaked streets, because it lets you describe the structure and weight of a city — not just its colour.

It is a palette about control, atmosphere, and storytelling. And for city painters, that’s exactly what a palette should be.