In my last post, I mentioned I might like swatching colors more than painting — well, I think I like setting up new palettes even more than that 🙃.
To me, assembling a watercolor palette is more than just squeezing paint tubes. It’s a symbol of new possibilities: new color mixes, new stories, new adventures. All are exciting things to explore and grow through!
If I let myself build watercolor palettes without restraint, I’d probably have hundreds of them. So, I try to have goals in mind each time I set a new one up. This time is no different!
With spring right around the corner (although frankly, it’s been feeling like summer is nearly here in my neck of the world), I’m dreaming of the days when I’ll be able to paint outside comfortably. Spring being a time for new beginnings, I’m also inspired to try out colors that are outside my norm! My goal is to create a small, lightweight palette filled with mostly new-to-me colors.
The Equipment
When I think of small and lightweight palettes, Art Toolkit palettes are the first to come to mind! I had one of their folio palettes in my drawer, and now seems like the right time to put it to use. I’ve played around with their smaller palettes in the past, but wanted to try something a little larger this time for more color options. The Art Toolkit palettes are light, versatile, and portable — just what I need for a good plein air, travel, or urban sketching palette!
Inside the palette, I’m using various sizes of metal pans. These can be purchased separately or along with the palettes themselves on the Art Toolkit site. I purchased several packages of each size, so I can mix-and-match as my colors change through the seasons!
I also have a few sizes of their extra mixing wells. Typically, I mix up various puddles of paint to use in each section/layer of my paintings, so having separate containers for each puddle will be super helpful.
The Process
Life would be super simple if I could just grab my pans and squeeze some paint in, right? Alas, I’m a huge color nerd. I need to test and play around with each of my options before committing to having them in my collection. Over the years, I’ve developed a bit of a process for filling my palettes:
1. Brainstorm colors
I always start any watercolor palette exercise with listing out the colors I have in mind. In this case, I knew I wanted to go with mostly Daniel Smith colors. I have a large selection of them, and recently, I’ve been enjoying them more than my usual Winsor & Newton options.
Oftentimes, I have colors that I know for sure I’ll include, and others that are nice-to-haves. I also usually have some selections that could be alternated with other, similar colors. I’ll list all of these out and use indicators for which are which.
Another consideration: how frequently do I use/will I use this color? In my primary watercolor palette, I FLY through Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine. I try to build in larger pans for colors such as this whenever I can.
2. Swatch, mix, and compare
For those colors that have potential alternative options, I run through a gamut of quick tests to observe their different properties. I always mix them with other colors, especially the ones that will be staple colors (like blues and browns).
One-by-one, I eliminate pigments from the list. Occasionally, it’s easy to decide — like when a color is extra hard to rewet, or if its color just doesn’t inspire me in the least. Other times, I need to think more deeply about my decision. I usually do some quick, small paintings to see the colors in action alongside the rest of the palette. In the end, I always remind myself that it’s just one color of many, and I can swap it out later if it doesn’t work out.
3. Choose layout and order of pans
This is an important, sometimes-overlooked part of the process. The order in which colors sit in the watercolor palette can have a big impact on my paintings!
Imagine this: you’re out on the painting trip of a lifetime, sitting on the side of the street in a small French village. You’re painting a gorgeous, ancient building — the light is catching the stonework just right, displaying a dizzying array of hues. You’re working quickly, trying to capture the colors before the sun’s rays are blocked by the next building over, before the heat of the day dries your paper forcing harder edges. Your brush moves automatically to the palette, bringing the gentlest blue to complement the sandstone…. But wait. What is that?! You grabbed… OPERA PINK?! Sure, you could maybe recover from this, but suddenly the vision in your mind’s eye is lost.
This actually happened to me during my painting trip to France last summer. I swapped some colors around in my palette, hoping to complement the lesson palette I had, and I didn’t have an opportunity to arrange the colors into the proper order.
When painting, my arm’s muscle memory does most of the work of picking up my colors. This allows me to focus more on things like value, light, and structure. It also makes me a lot faster, which is important when painting outside!
To enable this practice, I set all of my watercolor palettes up in a virtually identical fashion: saturated colors on the top, earth versions of those colors on the bottom, ranging from yellow-orange-red-purple-blue-green-darks from left to right. With each watercolor palette set up in the same way, I always know the relative location of each pigment. So, a critical part of my process is ensuring the layout of the pans will support this theme.
4. Rinse and repeat
Every so often, when I’m mocking up the layout, I’ll discover that I picked out too many red-browns. The whole balance of the palette is thrown off. So, I’ll go back to the drawing board by swatching, mixing, and eliminating or prioritizing. I sometimes do several passes of this over the course of a few painting sessions, just to feel at ease with my selections (of course, this is only in extreme cases like with watercolor palettes that have fixed wells).
5. Commit and swatch
Next, I fill the pans or wells from my tubes of paint. I have to say, I don’t truly enjoy this part. It can be a bit messy, and I usually end up chasing at least a couple of caps that rolled across the room. But the feeling of filling the last pan/well is the best! I let these dry overnight, then I’m ready for my favorite part of the process: swatching!
I know, I know. I talk about swatching a lot. I really do love it, though! This time, it actually serves a purpose, I promise!
Once the palette has been finalized and filled, I do a quick swatch of the colors. This helps me as a guide to the exact location of each color until I can fine-tune the muscle memory. It’s also a quick reference to help me visualize any new colors, in case I can’t quite picture what they’ll look like yet. In this case, there are several that I’ll need to get to know — so this will be a useful reference!
The Results
Finally, after all of this work, I have my perfect watercolor palette! Or, at least, perfect for my goal of having a lightweight palette filled with brands I don’t normally use.
I’ll share the colors below, but it’s worth mentioning that these selections are heavily influenced by Renee Walden’s watercolor palette! I took a workshop with her recently, and was inspired by the liveliness and granulation in some of the mixes — something I would like to explore more.
Going from top-to-bottom, and left-to-right, the colors are as follows:
(DS == Daniel Smith, W&N == Winsor & Newton, MB == MaimeriBlu)
- DS Hansa Yellow Light (TBH, I’ll probably remove this one and go with Raw Sienna Light instead!)
- DS Hansa Yellow Medium
- DS Hansa Yellow Deep
- DS Quinacridone Gold
- DS Monte Amiata Natural Sienna
- W&N Light Red
- DS Pyrrol Scarlet
- DS Quinacridone Sienna
- DS Burnt Sienna
- MB Burnt Umber
- DS Quinacridone Rose
- W&N Perylene Violet
- MB Permanent Violet
- DS Ultramarine Blue
- DS Cobalt Blue
- W&N Cerulean Blue
- DS Cobalt Teal Blue
- DS Cobalt Turquoise
- W&N Winsor Blue (Green Shade)
- DS Phthalo Green (Blue Shade
- DS Sap Green
- DS Green Gold
- MB Dragon’s Blood
- MB Indigo
- MB Payne’s Gray
Thanks for joining me on this journey! I’d love to hear about how you choose colors for your palette. Do you have any favorites that are must-haves? Any that you’re trying out right now? Leave a comment below!
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