ArtPlantae Today

Posted in botanical art, Watercolor | 4 Comments

4 Responses

1. on November 30, 2009 at 8:53 AM Tania

   The best palette I ever bought was a fondue plate from Crate & Barrel. It has the nice slippery feel of a ceramic palette, the suggestion of compartments to keep colors separated, and is easy to clean.

   
   
2. on November 30, 2009 at 9:06 AM Parnell Corder

   On my work table is:

   1 large Godiva chocolates tin and 1 Scottish biscuit tin holding all of the tubes of water colors in one and brushes erasers etc.. in the other.

   I squeeze out, mix on, and leave the colors on open surface enameled tin trays. Something called a Butcher tray?? I have several going at any given time. Some are focused on different color ranges.

   My water bucket/source is a short metal container which I think is a champagne bucket a friend gave me years ago.

   All very portable and simple.

   

   
   
3. on November 30, 2009 at 4:33 PM Rayma Peterson

   My favorite is my mother’s old watercolor palette that is enameled metal. It opens like a book and has 24 small compartments for each color, twelve on each side. There are five larger separated surfaces to mix colors on. It also has a covered opening for your thumb that is like the old fashioned oil paint palette. They sell plastic ones like it, but this is the best. My colors are arranged in a loose analogous sequence. It serves me very well. Mom was a watercolorist all her life. I don’t know how old it is, but I remember her using it all the time while I was growing up.

   
   
4. on November 30, 2009 at 8:14 PM Katura Reynolds

   A heck of a lot of my watercolor work is done in the field with one of those portable micro-kits that folds up small; the palettes on that are plastic and work just fine. But at home, I work out of either a big enameled metal butcher tin like Parnell shows above, or I mix up larger washes in small ceramic plates from the thrift store. (Then I can modify these big batches by dragging in hints of other colors that are squeezed in discreet blobs onto the rim of the plate, very convenient.)

   When traveling ultra-mega-light, I’ll squirt a blob of just one color, possibly two, into an empty metal breath-mint tin and let that dry before tossing it in my bag with a folding brush. Sometimes a monotone landscape is just the ticket. And it’s fun seeing all the pine needles and other remnants of camping trips that get worked into the paint in these mini-tins!

   
   

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