Palette Talk 

For this first post I wanted to talk about materials.  I know that many people including myself scour the web and YouTube for pictures, videos and articles reviewing artist materials.  For as much amazing information that exists on these materials I feel there is just not enough.  As artists we want to know as much about a material or tool as we can before we lay down our money and buy it.  Taking that into consideration, we must not forget one of the most crucial aspects of creating.  Failure.  It is important we try things and learn what we do and do not want in our arsenal.

I will do my part, and show materials I have and use on a regular basis, and my insignificant opinions on them.  If this blog serves no other purpose but to make you drool over stuff like paint, brushes and palettes, I have done something right.

The two palettes I have at the moment are both metal foldable palettes. The larger one, is a Daniel Smith, twelve whole-pan metal watercolor box.

This palette is fantastic.  Rest assured that if you can get your hands on one of these boxes it is worth every cent.  I believe I payed something like sixty-five dollars on it late one night.  This just happened to be one of the best late night purchases I have ever made.  

The palette came with twelve empty plastic pans, which you can take out and organize with half pans if your heart so desired to.  Mine did.  

The palette has allot going for it.  it is actually quite small when folded up and will fit in nearly any day bag or purse.  The whole pans hold a rather generous amount of paint.  There is room in the middle of the palette which you could put an eraser or pencils, or really any thing you could fit.  I never used this feature except on occasion I would put a damp paper towel in it which would aid in keeping the paints moist.  The weight on the palette is fantastic, it actually feels like you are holding something which is a trait that many of the plastic palettes out there do not posses.  

The actual painting surface is coated with a white enamel, and though skeptical at first having painted on plastic palettes for years, I quickly fell in love with the beauty in the interaction of paint with it's surface.  

As great as this palette is, surprisingly, it is not a palette I really use anymore.

The Golden Child

I fell in love with this tiny metal bijou box and let me assure you unlike your high school sweet heart, this is True love.

"Small." "Cute." "Adorable."  I know that these are all words going through your mind, but I am thinking "compact" and "durable."  In my experience something that I could put in my pocket and always have on me is a tool that I will use.

Yellow ochre and raw sienna hanging out together in a half pan.

The boxes I own side by side with my hand for size references.  Though both boxes are sold by two different companies, I believe that these boxes come from the same Italian manufacturer called Fome.  They are built the same way, one is just a "mini-me" version.

I found that there is really no restrictions as far what you can paint because of the limited mixing space.  For sketching the palette's limited mixing space is more than enough to accomplish 9*12 inch painting.  When I want to paint larger I use a small cut in half piece of a watercolor palette for big washes.  If you don't believe me on the capabilities of this small paint box, check out the artist Tony Foster's website.  Foster paints on a massive scale on rolled paper up to 3ft * 6ft using this same type of bijou palette.   

Paint box, plus cut in half plastic palette used for large washes. 

Now that you know what kind of palette I use to paint with, maybe you would like to know what kind of paint I put in it.

Left to right; Cadmium Red, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Lemon, Viridian, Cerulean, Cobalt, and Ultramarine.

I have used many different paint brands, and many different colors but I have managed to narrow down my palette to twelve colors, which at times seems to be too much.  I will go into paint brands and colors in a future post but if you were about to order some paint in a couple minutes or go to the store, all I can say is, buy artist quality pigments.  

The image above is what you will find in my palette at any given time, and depending on if I am doing some pleinair work at night you may find a tube of ivory black and some opaque titanium white watercolor.

Hopefully this post has been somewhat useful.