Creating Your Paint Palette

c REATING YOUR PAINT PALETTE

When I sit down to paint, I squeeze small dabs of my tube watercolor paint onto my palette of choice, which is usually a large white dinner plate. Depending on how many colors I want to use, and how much space I have available, I usually like to place the dabs a few inches apart to leave some room to blend colors. I tend to place the pure pigment dabs near the edges of the palette and then mix the colors and water closer to the center of the palette. I use my brush to bring clear water from my Mason jar to my painting palette to create a mixture of water and paint. This mixture—the ratio of water to paint—is the key to watercolor painting! (More on this in The Magic Sauce, page 24). I enjoy using the slanted edges of my white dinner plate for the paint dabs, as the water runs through, in, and around each of the dabs of pure pigmented paint. The slant of the plate allows the pure pigment to sit slightly above the pools of the paint-water mixtures I create. This way I can easily access the mixtures and, because there are other paint mixtures flowing on the broad mixing area of my plate, new colors and shades are created as I continue to add water and paint. I can also still dab into my pure pigmented paint as needed because it stays in place on the lip of the plate. So convenient! The pure dabs of paint come in handy, in case I want to quickly add more pigment to a paint-water mixture or carry some over to another area of the plate to create a different color mixture.

Some of my favorite color discoveries have happened because of the unintentional blending that happens on my palettes. After I’m done painting for the day, I save my palettes. They dry, and when I return to paint the next day (or hour), I reanimate the same blends just by adding water. This way, all my favorite colors are waiting for me and I can pick up right where I left off.