Monday, September 24, 2007

My pile of palettes

Some of my Watercolor Palettes Pile of Palette's
Since I first began water coloring, palettes have always been my accessory of choice. In other words I have a love - hate relationship with them all. The first palette I ever bought was the Eldajon palette, the one right in the center of the photo. It has 12 small slant wells and three mixing areas. Nice, but I still thought I needed something else, something to hold more paint. Then I heard about using stacking ice cube trays as a palette, along with another palette that has many wells (very far left) that will help you with mixing. Okay, I still wasn't happy ... I bought a palette recommended in one of Jan Kunz books (I can't remember the name). That didn't satisfy me either, because it had such small wells, I bought the Winson Newton travel set... nice but it is just something I never use. The list goes on. Now that I'm about through with buying new palettes I reflect back on the ones I liked/like the best. Believe it or not, I still think the ice cube trays are one of my favorites. I had one for reds, blues and yellows ... they travel nicely because they stack and you can use a large brush with them. Another favorite is the Jones round. It has 12 small wells for paint (even though they are small), but works great if you use a color wheel... plus it has a lid. I'm now using my first palette, the Eldajon. It has no lid, small wells and only three mixing areas ... but, I went back to this because I decided to stick with a limited palette of 12 colors ... the Michael Wilcox colors, and I thought this palette would help me learn more about the colors I was using.
After 12 years of water coloring the pigments are still a mystery to me.

3 comments:

  1. I learn something new every day... ice cube trays! I'm new to watercolor and I never thought of using them. Sounds like a winner to me--I've got a bunch of old trays cluttering my kitchen sink cabinets.

    Nice blog and your website is gorgeous!

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  2. I have too many palettes too. On one taboret I have two covered Robert Woods palettes (my favorites), one for gouache and one for watercolor. On my other tabouret I have two covered Masterson palettes, one for acrylic and one for oils. Then there's all the portable palettes....and more.

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  3. I always wondered why they have square wells. Round ones are so much more natural for a brush ...

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