Palettes

There are a huge number of palette options available. Some are designed as watercolour palettes, others can be adapted with some spray paint to work very well. Here are a few to look at.
I have written a couple of blog posts about filling palettes and pans and about the advantages of only partially filling them rather than completely filling them here.
(Note - I will be adding more information on Brushes too over time. See my Blog post here. See also information on travel brushes in the Plein Air Sketches tab above, and a Blog post here)

Masters Folding palettes

The Masters Folding Palette is the palette I generally suggest my students use to start their watercolour journey. They are a very practical and economical choice. They can hold 20 or 28 colours directly in the colour wells and cost around $10 or less. There are many copies of the original version of this palette and the quality of the plastic does vary.

20 colour Masters palette

20 colour Masters folding palette.

I make up the 20 colour Masters palette filled with Artist quality Daniel Smith and Da Vinci watercolours for my students. You can see the paint-out of all colours below.

This is one of the configurations of colours that I used for teaching - I may use an alternate pigment at times such as Yellow Ochre instead of Quinacridone Gold.

It is a fantastic range as it has three reds, three yellows and three blues to really increase choices in terms of mixing secondaries. It also has a wonderful range of earth colours and some great greens. It is almost entirely single pigment colours with some convenience colours made out of other pigments in the palette. These are Undersea Green, Sap Green and Jane's Grey. It also contains a mix of transparent, staining, opaque and granulating colours. Suitable for the beginner or experienced painter, and small enough for travel and plein air painting.

Masters 20 colour palette filled with a very versatile range of artist quality paints. Quin Gold could be replaced with yellow ochre or raw sienna if a less granulating yellow earth is desired.

28 colour Masters palette

28 colour filled Masters folding palette.

The large Masters 28 colour folding palette, closed.

I fill the larger 28 colour palette with the same 20 colours as above, with 2 oranges (bright and burnt), 2 purples (bright and neutral), another green and a granulating turquoise added, as well as some more earth yellows colours so it includes all three of my favourites - Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna and the granulating Goethite. It is filled with artist quality watercolours as in the paint-out below.

I don't totally fill the wells so there is a bit of space to make a wash of pure colour directly in the well if needed. I also label the colours with a waterproof pen, as you can see left.

Masters 28 colour palette filled with a wonderful selection of artist quality paints. Quin Burnt Orange could be replaced with DS Transparent Red Oxide if a more granulating option is desired.

The one downside of any folding palette like these - with colours on both sides of the hinge - is that you have to allow them to dry before closing them to avoid colours running all over the place. Otherwise though they are a terrific palette and I have used them for years and set up hundreds for my students.

Mijello folding palettes.

Mijello, from Korea, have produced some really interesting and innovative palettes.

18 colour Mijello palette

Mijello Fusion palette from the Mijello website http://www.mijelloart.com/fusion-18.html

Another palette to look out for is the Mijello Fusion palette. It is a very well designed palette that holds 18 colours, with three large mixing areas. You can see more images on their website here.

While more expensive than the Masters palettes shown at the top of this page, it has the advantage of having all the colours on one side so it can be closed when wet. It is designed to keep the colours moist but that isn't a factor for me as I always allow my tube paint to fully dry so they don't develop mould. I also don't find the need to spray them with water before use as many recommend. Daniel Smith and Da Vinci both rewet beautifully at the touch of a brush.

I tend to favour 20-colour palettes, but have set up this palette with Buff Titanium, Hansa Yellow Medium (or choose H.Y.Light), Quinacridone Gold (or Hansa Yellow Deep), Pyrrol Scarlet (or Da Vinci Permanent Red), Pyrrol Crimson, Quinacridone Rose, Ultramarine, Cerulean Chromium, Phthalo Blue GS, Phthalo Green BS, Perylene Green, Yellow ochre, Goethite, Raw Sienna (or a convenience green), Burnt Sienna, Indian Red, Raw umber and Jane's Grey. If I were setting it up as a sketching palette I might switch the Phthalo green out for DS or DV Sap Green as Perylene green is also great for mixing. You can see it set up below.

The 18 well Mijello Fusion palette filled with a palette of single pigment colours, plus Jane's Grey of course. My Ultimate mixing set or 15, along with Raw Sienna PBr7, Yellow Ochre PY43 and Perylene Green PBk31. This is a great range of mixable pigments, without the convenience Sap and Undersea greens I often like to add. I have written the colours in with permanent pen, but the wells can be filled fully if you know your colours.

Mijello 20-colour palette

The 20-colour version released in 2017 is my teaching palette - it has replaced the one above as I just like having 20 colours! It is large when opened - almost 12" square (just over 31cm wide and just under 29cm heigh) so not so useful for plein air, but it has huge mixing areas and like the Fusion version above, includes a removable clear plastic mixing area that can be held over a painting to compare colours, or removed for cleaning.

The 20-colour Mijello palette set up

I love this palette colour range. It has all my 'ultimate mixing set' colours and five extra colours - three greens and two more yellow earths. It is filled with Daniel Smith watercolours - buff titanium, hansa yellow medium, quinacridone gold, pyrrol scarlet, pyrrol crimson, quinacridone rose, ultramarine, cerulean chromium, phthalo blue GS, phthalo green BS, perylene green, undersea green, sap green, yellow ochre, goethite, raw sienna, burnt sienna, Indian red, raw umber and Jane's grey. All are single pigment colours except sap green, undersea green and Jane's grey. (Quinacridone gold is no longer available as a single pigment colour, but I stocked up ;-)

The Fusion 24 palette is similar but has paints on both sides of the palette.
The Fusion 33 holds a lot of colours on one side of the palette.
There is also the massive Mijello Bulletproof palette - I've included the older 34 colour version lower on this section.

This is not the same palette of 20 that I use in the studio, but it's a range I'd highly recommend.

Metal Folding Palettes

Metal palettes are designed to hold half or full plastic pans. They are generally designed with an inner tray that grips the pans in place. They tend to be designed to hold 12, 24, 36 or even 48 colours.

12 colour palette metal folding palettes

Art Basics palette closed

The Art Basics metal travel palette is approx AU$25. There are similar palettes by Schmincke and others available in various price ranges, full or empty. Designed to hold 12 half pans and a travel brush or pencil, they can have 14 squeezed in very easily, as you can see on the below. I set up this palette set up with 14 colours for my students who wish to go plein air painting.

Art Basics palette opened. Filled with 14 of my recommended colours

Art Basics palette partially opened showing the fold out mixing tray.

You could set up the metal palette with 14 of the colours shown here. You can choose whether to include the cool dark brown Raw Umber, the granulating opaque Indian Red or my custom mixed Jane's Grey as your final colour. Or just remove the pyrrol crimson, which you can almost mix with the scarlet and rose, and have all the others.

15 Great Colours - My ultimate mixing set of 15 colours. I have created a book which shows every possible two colour and most three colour mixes using this set. See The Ultimate Mixing Palette tab above.

If you take out the tray and you can load it with 24 half pans as pictured below left, or have a mix of whole and half pans as you can see below right. Or you could set it up with 21 half pans and leave room for a travel brush. These palettes are very versatile. Stick pans in with blu-tac or with adhesive magnets.

Schmincke Palette with the tray removed and filled with 24 half pans.

Schmincke Palette with the tray removed and filled with 20 half pans and 2 full pans.

12 full pan metal palettes

This is the Da Vinci 12-colour full pan palette. The Da Vinci pans are larger than the 'universal' full pans - this would hold 14 of those. You can see more about Da Vinci palettes here. Once again, the tray can be removed and you can create your own custom arrangement of colours.

Cotman travel palettes

The old Cotman palette set up with artist quality paints poured directly into the wells, without half pans, shown with an Isabey squirrel quill travel brush.

Winsor and Newton make a number of travel palettes. This Cotman version comes with 12 student grade watercolours colours in little half pans. These can be removed (most of the colours are not nearly as nice to paint with as artist quality paints) and tube colours squeezed into the spaces directly, or the half pans can be used with your own choice of colours. It is a lightweight and remarkably strong palette. Great for plein air sketches.

My first watercolour set was a Cotman palette like this. They come with a tiny brush that is about the only thing that fits in the tiny brush space :-)

While in Japan in 2016, I found another Cotman student palette which holds 16 half pans, shown above right. It isn't as small or robust as the 12-colour left, but does give more pigment options and more mixing spaces. It also holds a pencil, eraser and small brush. Unlike the 12-colour palette, the half pans are only held in place by a removable structure so it is possible to use regular half pans stuck in with double sided tape or blu-tac. See right. This design interested me as I have been exploring designing a more versatile travel palette and had drawn up something very similar to this myself!

Larger Winsor & Newton Cotman palette with the insides taken out and replaced with artist quality watercolour in half pans.

By using a craft knife and cutting out the plastic that held the pans in place, I created enough space for 21 half pans, with room for a mini waterbrush and a travel brush. The half pans are held in place with Blu-tac. You could use double sided tape but it is easier to wash out the palette (which is worth doing periodically) if you set it up with Blu-tac. I like this palette hack :-)

While I don't recommend using Cotman or other student paints, student palettes are often well designed and it is easy enough to take out the student quality paints and refill the half pans with your own artist quality watercolours. Consider Koi, Kuretake and others as well. (see more below)

Pocket Palette

This little pocket palette, the size of a business card holder, is wonderfully compact with a good range of colours. It was designed by Maria of expeditionaryart.com to be very portable and light weight. It's not what you'd use for large paintings in a studio but great for travelling.

Here is is shown open filled with my 14 recommended colours.

The original version was stainless steel. There is a white mixing surface that is robust enough to be cleaned many times, and a magnet holds the little pans in place.

Pocket Palette open. Each magnetic mini pan holds 1/4 of a full pan of paint.

The Pocket Palette and its little pouch.

I filled with them with 14 of my ultimate mixing set as pictured below. As there are 14 spaces and my full set includes 15 colours, I had to remove one, so I included the lovely dark Raw Umber and not Indian Red but you could request Indian Red instead if you prefer. Jane's Grey is a custom mix of Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna and is fabulously useful for plein air painting.

My Pocket Palette set of colours.

Size compared with a half pan.

Here is the closed palette, compared with a half pan of watercolour. It is designed around a credit card holder - remarkably small.

Below it is compared with the metal palette.

The Pocket Palette next to the Art Basics palette so see the size comparison. The pocket palette is much slimmer too.

New developments

The next version of the Pocket Palette from March 2016 was created using even lighter aluminium that will not show fingerprints. The mixing area now has sides and the bottom lip has been reduced to allow better brush access.

See more on my Blog about these here.

Above is the Pocket Palette I keep in my sketching bag - it has some lovely 'extra' watercolours for special purposes when plein air painting.

In January 2018, half pans were added to the range and all the pans were redesigned with an anti rust treatment.

I sell these in Australia for AU$40 empty or filled with my ultimate mixing set of artist quality paints AU$80, plus shipping. I now use two of the half pans for phthalo blue and phthalo green so I can include all 15 of my Ultimate Mixing set :-)

The many pan options available now, anti-rust treated.

Portable Painter Palette

The Portable Painter was a clever plein air palette that was launched via Indiegogo in 2017. I like this design, even though it is limited to 12 colours, as it incorporates two water containers in a compact system. I always use two - one for clean and one for brush washing water, to keep my palette colours clean. I have written about it in detail here, including some great 12-colour palette suggestions. More of those can also be found in my website here.

Tiny Italian Pocket Palette

This little Italian made chap was from Singapore arters.com.sg. Designed to hold 12 colours shown on the right, I have done a bit of sanding of the half pans to fit in 14 as seen below. You can see a paint-out of this palette here or read more about palettes on my Blog. The final photo shows 15 half pans squeezed in by removing the tray - not an easy task but now it holds my full Ultimate Mixing set.

It is called the Whiskey palette in the US as there is also a version that has an integral water bottle and water container.

Schmincke make a similar model with a water container.

These are very small so another option if you want to have your colours with you all the time, but a bit more mixing space than the pocket palette pictured above.

Palette with 12 colours.

Tiny palette with 14 colours

Whiskey palette with tray removed to fit 15 colours.

Herring Palettes

Another wonderful palette - one of my favourites - is the Herring compact palette available from Jacksons Art in the UK and Ken Bromley, UK. It is a bit more expensive than the Masters folding palette above but allows you to use either full or half pans of your colours. I have written a lot about these in my Blog here. And included my current set up here, with a paint-out.

It has nice deep mixing wells and is compact for travelling. You can buy empty pans and fill them yourself from your tubes or buy full or half pans of your chosen colours. If you fill in the thumb hole with some thin plastic or cardboard, you can stick in another 4 full pans or 8 half pans. The half pan model holds 16 colours with room for a brush and a sponge, or fill it with 32 half pans with the thumb hole covered and still have room for a brush. Fill the brush section with 8 more half pans and it holds 48 colours. Both models are very versatile and you can choose to put the paint directly into the wells rather than using pans if you prefer, as you can see below. I use the half pan model for my largest sketching palette (pictured right with the waterbrush), and I use the full pan model set up with 16 M.Graham and Schmincke gouaches as, unlike most gouache, these can be re-wet.

I have included a number of photos to show how much you can personalise or customise this palette. The first option is my general plein air sketching palette, and travels with me all over the world.

Half pan model

Full pan model

Herring half pan model with the thumb hole covered and 8 half pans added and the rest of the wells filled directly.

The full pan model set up with 16 colours in gouache - one is removed to show the hand hole. I fill these in with plastic glued into place.

Closeup of half pan version with extra half pans added to make 24 colours. Notice the paint is squeezed directly into the palette without additional half pans so more paint can be put in but it is more difficult to change colours around.

Herring compact half pan version with extra half pans added to make 24 colours. This shows the palette set up with individual half pans inserted, so it is easier to change colours around. This is my largest sketching palette - I can change pigments easily for subjects if I wish.

Herring compact full pan model with some half pans inserted.

Herring half pan model with extra half pans added in the brush section. With the thumb hole filled 32 half pans can be fitted into this model.

Home made palettes and more palette 'hacks'.

Watercolour is exceedingly portable and you can make a watercolour palette out of just about anything. You can make your own paint box by squeezing tube paints into an ice cube tray, sticking bought pans or home made pans onto almost any surface with blu-tac, magnetic strips or glue, or using a pill box which was designed to hold pills for a week or a month but is useful for holding paint! Dried cakes of colour can also be attached to a surface. You can use a china plate, plastic containers of almost any size or even a bit of cardboard to make a palette for your colours.
I have shown a silver cigarette case converted into a watercolour stick palette here and have even converted silver match cases to palettes.

This tiny hinged tin perfectly holds 6 full pans. (Or 12 half pans.) A great way to try a limited palette.

I made this from a tiny lip balm tin, adding the segments with plumbing clay.

This was designed as a cigarette case, but with magnetic strips, 20 half pans can easily fit inside the case.

This was designed as a cigarette case. Here it is closed.

This makeup palette has been sprayed with white enamel and filled with watercolour.

This small hinged tin holds 12 half pans very easily. With the lid sprayed with enamel it would be ready to used.

...Or you can have something professionally made out of brass or another metal.

Brass Palettes

There are a number of people making beautiful brass palettes. These are an expensive option but can be personalised to a large degree. You can see my travel versions in the Plein Air sketching tab here.

See palettes by John of Littlebrassbox here. This one pictured right is one of his Robertson style palettes - I use it exclusively in my studio.

Have a look at David's amazing range from classicpaintboxes here.

See my personal 20-colour palette colours painted out and explained, with the additional plein air 'extras' here.

My studio palette with 20 colours.

My Studio Palette colours

Student Palettes

You can buy a student quality watercolour palette and adapt it to your purposes by replacing the student watercolours with artist quality of your own choice. They are often quite compact and well designed, but the watercolours in them are usually frustrating - weaker and less lightfast than artist quality watercolours. They are often designed with a homogenous feel to them so you miss out on the range of characteristics that are possible with professional watercolours.

Here is a Kuretake student set. Once again the insides can be removed and replaced as the plastic palette is a very functional design. You can do the same with the Koi and other student sets, such as the W&N Cotman shown above. Creating your own personal palettes is rather fun.

Kuretake student watercolour palette.

Mijello 'Bulletproof' palette

Bulletproof palette closed

Bulletproof palette open

Bulletproof palette filled with 34 colours. It's a great studio palette.

This plastic palette made by Mijello holds 34 colours and claims to contain a plastic that is used to make bullet proof glass. It is a larger palette with an excellent mixing surface that cleans up very well.

It is a more expensive palette than the Masters, or even the Herring, and larger, so more suitable for the studio than plein air work. I used this very happily many years ago, but I replaced it with a brass palette that takes up less room on my drawing table. I enjoyed having all these granulating colours but opted to have them as 'extras' and use more traditional colours for my main studio palette. Note - it has been redesigned - the new version is here. Also see the Perfect Color palette and others in this well-designed range.

A paint-out of this massive 34 colour bullet-proof palette that I had set up with a number of favourites, including a huge range of granulating primatek colours. All Daniel Smith. The colours are Buff Titanium, Hansa Yellow Medium (or Light), New Gamboge, Quinacridone Gold, Quinacridone Sienna, Transparent Pyrrol Orange, Pyrrol Red (not strictly necessary), Anthraquinoid Red (or Pyrrol Crimson), Quinacridone Rose, Quinacridone Violet (not necessary really), Imperial Purple, Moonglow, Indanthrone Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Phthalo blue RS (or use Green Shade), Cerulean Chromium, Blue Apatite Genuine, Jadeite, Perylene Green, Undersea Green, Green Apatite Genuine, Serpentine Genuine, Yellow Ochre, Goethite, Raw Sienna, Transparent Red Oxide, Burnt Sienna, Indian Red, Piemontite Genuine, Raw Umber, Environmentally Friendly Brown Iron oxide (or burnt umber), bistre (Jane's Grey) and Lunar Black.

As mentioned above, there are a number of excellent Mijello watercolour palettes. This design has been updated and Mijello now have their own range of watercolours, with palettes designed for their own sets as well as sold empty.

Cleaning your palette

Some watercolours stain your palette, whether it is made of plastic or enamelled brass. Phthalo colours are particularly staining but some are some of the reds. If you wipe out your palettes thoroughly with a cloth or paper towel with clean water, the stain that may remain won't affect future colours. However, if you wish to remove this staining, start by taking a paper towel and wiping the palette with a touch of vegetable oil. Phthalo colours are oil soluble so you will find that this will remove most of the phthalo staining. Then wipe with a clean paper towel thoroughly. Next use a bathroom cleaner - Jif, Gumption or whetever you have that is slightly abrasive - and clean again. Once again wipe away all the residue.

Some artists never clean their palettes, enjoying having a ready supply of dried up mud colours available. I can't stand that! I keep may colours and palettes clean. I generally clean my palettes with just water after I finish each painting or sketch, and give it a thorough clean a few times a year to fully recover the white mixing surface.

Ceramic Palettes

Academy 32 well ceramic palette from Jacksons, UK

The only palette surface that simply doesn't stain is ceramic, which is one of the most beautiful surfaces to mix on. It wipes off with ease and doesn't stain. However ceramic palettes are heavy and fragile.

There are many fabulous ceramic palette designs, like this Academy 32 well model available from http://www.jacksonsart.com but they are generally large, so they take up a lot of space, and relatively heavy so only suitable for home/studio use. I don't own large ones like this but I have a number of smaller ceramic mixing palettes that I use for inks and acrylic.

A white dinner plate, white ceramic soy sauce trays and other 'kitchen' ceramic options will also work. And there are flower shaped mixing palettes that are a joy to use.