Setting up a custom sketching palette with watercolors

1. Introduction: Hello. I'm Julian, illustrator and field sketcher. Thank you for joining me, Setting up a custom watercolor pen. It can be a step towards improving your painting experience, and you get to know your paints better in the process. Also makes a lot of sense to fill your palate with colors you like and not just use the random colors you might get from already made palette. And that's class. We're taking a look at how to set up a organize, a custom watercolor, pen it for outdoor sketching, for example, nature journaling or urban sketching. I will show you how assembling your own palette with custom colors can give you better mixing results. What kind of pellets are lied and practical for outdoor use and how different layouts for appellate can look like. We'll be looking at a bit off color and mixing theory to make sure you have all the colors you need and know which ones you can throw out. Modifying and improving your palate can be an ongoing process throughout the years, so I invite both beginners and experienced painters to take a closer look at their water color kits. I'll explain the many different options you have when choosing watercolor paints and pigments, and how to decide if you should use cubes or pants. I'll also share lots of practical tips on rearranging palette space, filling up pens, how to reuse spare parts and keeping your field kid in order so it will last you a long time. At the end of this class, you'll have the knowledge to set up a custom watercolor palette fitting exactly Your needs ought to modify an existing palates you might already have if you are passionate or curious about what her color it's worth to take a look at your palate, and I hope you will be inspired to set up your own palette by the end of this class. So breath pure painting here and let's take a look. 2. Materials: the materials you'll need for this class will depend on what you already have. If you're planning to set up an entirely new palette or are new to watercolors, I'd recommend watching the entire class and doing a bit of research before buying anything that you might not need. In the end, you can revisit the single lessons off this class at any time. If you already have an existing palette and some pains, then you might not need to get anything new or just a few small things unbeliever and using up what you have and not buying excessively many supplies. So if you have been painting for a while, then you probably have all the paints you need. I'm focusing on outdoor pellets in this class, and I'll show you how to set up a small portable watercolor kid that you can take with you and that slide weighed and practical some off. The principles that I'll talk about can apply to studio palates as well, like mixing and color considerations. But obviously you will have a lot more choices of. Wade is not an issue. Usually field kids will have between eight and 20 colors. Let's take a look here, So my field kids tend to have a few more colors simply because I don't want to stand around and mix colors in the field all day. The typical materials for this kind of palate would be the palate itself, um, a number of pains than plastic pants. If you're using a palette that uses pans and possibly small helpers like Bluetec, which is a kind off removable adhesive or glue are made, even small magnets. If you're using a method palette, and if you already have a small pallet or another small box, or like the Littleton, then you might be able to use it. And for testing your pains and for making a color child later, you'll need a brush and some watercolor paper, too. 3. Why Set Up Your Own Palette?: So why assemble your own palette? There are a lot of ready made watercolor kids out there, so why should you set up your own planet? First of usually, these pre made pallets tend to have colors that you probably won't use that much or that aren't useful at all, like black or white, that they are meant to appeal to many types of painters, and usually that means a lot of compromises. And sometimes these pain choices even get bed painting results because they are not what you need for certain subjects or scenarios. A lot of pre made pallets contained student rate pains or cadmium pigments, and if you want transparent mixes, thes are usually not the best choice. Setting up your own palette will probably improve the quality off your pains and most definitely the combination off the paints you have, because he will choose exactly the colors you need. And this will, of course, depend on what you're painting most. So a landscape painter will have different needs, then an urban sketcher. I'm a passionate nature sketches, so I mostly pain subjects like birds, plans, landscapes. But I also worked as an illustrator with broader range of subjects. So I like to be able to sketch the occasional building or a person with my possible kid, and this requires a very flexible palate, and I have a few more colors in then some feel painters. For example, choosing the colors you want to use in your palate and limiting them also forces you to become familiar with each one. So every pigment has different characteristics, and by learning about thes pigment properties and combining your colors when you're painting, you will learn a lot about what works for you and what doesn't. If you like. You can really dive in deep into the nerdy aspect of pigments like the chemical properties . And there's a lot off information about each off the pigments and chemicals that make up watercolor pains. And one could probably spend a lifetime studying and experimenting and testing these. But this will not make you a better sketch up, ho say so to assemble a great palette for your paintings, you don't need to have this kind of extended knowledge. But a few basic aspects will be enough, and we'll talk more about that in the upcoming lessons. One thing that I really value about my custom water color palettes is their lightness. There's nothing worse than having a large, heavy palette that you need to carry out around outside. And usually the missing colors in your small appellate can be easily mixed. So I have lightweight metal pallets like this, or even the this bigger one is still very light, and I really like that it's it's really portable. It usually makes sense to include colors in your palette that you can't mix that well, like to a quads or magenta. If he used these colors a lot, and since magenta as a primary color, you probably will need it, even if you don't know this yet. So be sure that he used these colors regularly because on a small pallet you might not have a lot of space. So it's also important to choose your supplies wisely so it's more palate will force you to get to know your colors really well, and it will help you to get better at mixing. I'm always excited to see my favorite colors in my small pallet, instead, off the random standard colors that someone else chose for me. All of that, said one thing I don't want you to do after watching this class is going out and buying you supplies. If you're not completely new to water color, then you probably have more than enough pains. I know this. So trying out new arrangements and combinations for your existing pains in a small upended may be an interesting experiment for you. Try combining the colors that you already have into a small outdoor pellet, and you'll be surprised how far you can take this. If you only have a pre made watercolor kid, then that's not bad. Use it. You can get wonderful sketches out of thes little pre made pellets, and I used one for years before I bought my own colors so you could start thinking with what you want to replace your pains with once they're used up. 4. Choosing Colors: Transparency, Opacity, Lightfastness: Let's talk a bit about the studying pigment characteristics and how to choose colors. There are many different companies that make water colors out there today, and choosing from them can feel a little bit overwhelming. And I know this because I've been there, too. I would always recommend artist great pains instead of student grade because you get better quality for your money. And apart from that, I'd always use whatever pain is best available to me at a good price. And that's usually pain that's made in my area on my country. So for me, um, I usually buy paint by shrinker. And that's not because I'm so in love with their pain that they happen to have good standard artist great pain. But I can get it at a really good price in my country because I live in Germany and the big paint manufacturers all make pains of high quality, with which you can paint great pictures So it doesn't really matter if you choose pain by shrink or by Winsor and Newton or by Senator Gate No, by Daniel Smith or by Daily and Ronnie, or, if you makes your pains from all of these So what's more important is that you choose colors that harmonize with with each other. It can be very beneficial to learn a bit about how different colors can behave, and manufacturers actually put a bit off that information on their labels. The pigments that make up our colors can be more on the transparent side or almost completely opaque, and this will influence how they will mix with each other. So let me show you two examples for transparent and I'll take colors so this would be a transparent number, which you can already see nicely spreads out and I can almost see through this. It really seems to shine. And even if I add more color, so this is a really transparent paint and then you could have something like this. Caramel brown, I can already see, seems to be more on the opaque side. So if you dilute this, then you will slowly see that transparent aspects part the difference. It's really in this mass tone here in this. When I pick up a lot of color, then you will see how opaque the color really ISS. So since watercolor is a technique that works a lot with the white off the paper. For many watercolorist, the transparency off their colors is really important. I also usually choose transparent pigments over opaque once it can save your mixes from becoming muddy too. Soon you will find this information on the paint label, sometimes written out and sometimes in small symbols. So each manufacturer uses their own system for this, but the cutting the category stay the same. This transparency, opacity, light, Fastness and staining, and these are usually is the information that you will find on either on the pain cube or in the culture that you can get from from the paint manufacturer. We've all seen Prince off. Fabrics fade in sunlight before, and soda water colors some off the pains out their our fugitive and I tend to avoid these completely. For that reason, I don't use a lizard in Crimson Rose Meta Meta Lake Auriol, in our cobalt, you know and flew rests on pigments like opera pink. Some of these are historical pigments, and while it's very nice that manufacturers keep them around for testing, they shouldn't be used, so watch out. Some manufacturers have formulated stable and light fast versions off these colors, for example, there you can often find permanent Eliza in crimson, and this is supposed to be a light first version off off this color. So it's important to look another hood, and I'll tell you how to do that in a second. I always choose colors that are as light, fast as possible, even for my sketchbook work. So for work that will be scanned or that only exists between book pages, it might not be much of a deal to use fading colors. But for some pains, this effect can happen pretty soon. And if you suddenly want to paying something for your wall or for someone else wall and only have thes non light fast colors, or mix your existing colors with ease non light, fast ones, then you'll have a problem because you will see that they fade. So this is the first aspect that I make sure to when I choose my colors. We talked a bit about transparency and opacity, and more transparency is great for getting clear and vibrant mixes mills. Callus will fall somewhere in between, and they might be called See me, transparent or semi opaque. It's worth noting that these qualities show through most when a lot of paint is applied like you saw here. So if you lay down your pained in a saturated stroke, let's do this again. On this time I have this Indian red here, which is one of the most opaque colors I know you can see. You can't really see through this, but now when I add some water to it, you can see it immediately spreads out, and you will get nice, transparent wash from this. So it really depends a little bit if you begin to add water than most pigments will spread and show more transparency. And if you paint and several layers, then this can be harder to do with opaque honors. For some pigments, you won't have many options. For example, there are not many really transparent warm reds or earth tones, and some manufacturers offer these s alternatives. If you're generally happy with your semi opaque or opaque pigments, then there's no reason to throw them all out. I just want to make sure that you know that there are differences between the different pigments. One thing that's very closely related to the transparency off a pigment is usually how much it stains the paper, so the small, other dissolved pigments are the more transparent they are. But this also means they sink better into the paper and becomes more difficult to remove the paint again if you want to do that. So, for example, I have painted a few swatches here, and this pig man is Taylor blue. So this is a very transparent but also very staining pigment, and if you remove it before it has dried, it's usually not a problem. But if you want to lift the paint again when it has dried, then you will see said, Well, it's actually better than I thought, but you will never get it to be fully white again. So scrubbing and lifting pain is usually a little bit if it's usually a bit difficult. But, um, you will see that it's even more difficult with ease staining pains. So here we have a seamy, staining earth turn. So with earth tones a usually a little bit coarser, so it should be easier to lift them. Mrs. A raw sienna on this actually lifts pretty well. You can see I didn't even apply Ah lot of pressure here, so I'm using synthetic brush, which is fairly soft. I'm dabbing the water off a little bit. This here is raw amber, which is another earth tone that should lived fairly well, and you can see that almost all of the color is removed on this year. ISS, part gasping, which is a really another course pigment, and you can see it almost lifts all of the pain out off out of the paper. So it also depends a little bit on the paper, but generally very coarse. Pig men's can simply be re wetted and lifted off the paper. But with e staining pigments, the very small pigment particles cling to the surface and usually are. They tend to sink into the fibers off the paper, and they usually cannot be removed entirely once they're dried. Pigments that are notorious for this are the tailor pig men, so you might know them from Taylor Green on Taylor Blue. And these also happened to be one off. The most versatile mix is for this reason for quick field sketches is probably not that important if the color is staining or not, because you won't spend hours with elaborate layering techniques where you wait for the paint to dry and then lifted off the page again. So absolutely try out these intense staining colors and see if you like them and see if you like mixing with them. They can be very effective and very vibrant, and I used I try to use non staining colors as much as I can, but I still like to have a few of these powerful staining colors around. 5. Choosing Colors: Granulation, Pigment Names: another interesting property off pigments is granule ation. This is the effect of several pigments glom, aerating or clumping together on the page in little groups, and this can give you a sketch more visual interest, although for some applications like close nature studies, I prefer actually non granulated pain. So it always depends, and it's entirely up to you. So you decide and definitely experiment with granulated pigments. And let's see if I can show you a few off thes granule ation effects. So this is COBOL file it, which should be a very nice granulated pigment. I'm not sure if I can get it going on. This paper also depends a bit, um, on the paper. Usually if you add a bit more water so that the pigment can't really spread, then you will see here you can see just the granule ation effect. It's already happening. Some companies have a lot of granulated colors like Daniel Smith, so let's try some off there granulated pain. I believe this is hematite. Sometimes you can get sort of a weird effect from these. Let's try another one just because it's a lot of fun. So maybe another dark one this is sewed allied, and as you can see, these spread around an interesting way. So they're really reacting to the water here, and we'll have to let this dry to see the granule ation and full effect, But you can already see 22 It's already starting to clump together a little bit. So, as I said, their companies that have a lot of granulated colors and other manufacturers prefer smooth and even pain flow. And these would be examples for this would be shrinking and whole by, and they have a lot off really smooth, non granulated colors. While this is drying, there is one more thing, and there's one more characteristic and colors that's worth taking a look at. And you don't need to make this a science like with all of these aspects, but it's good to at least have heard it by now. You know that your paint colors are made from different pigments that each have their own properties, and manufacturers don't always leave it at the single pigments for one color, and they tend to mix them up, sometimes to produce colors that can simulate historical colors or to come close to pigments. that are discontinued, and sometimes they just make up new stuff because they can sell you this stuff. And this isn't wrong per se. But you have to know that the more pigments you add into a mix than the easier it is to get money. Low vibrancy mixes the pigment numbers, or pigment in Next is noted on the paint label, and usually it's somewhere on the back. So as you can see here, it's pretty small. But here it says Pebe, 60 and the same color, but from a different manufacturer. So Windsor and Newton they have this even smaller labor. Here it is pig man, PB 60. So that's where you find information about the pigment. You can get all nerdy and technical and learn about the chemicals behind these numbers to see what's in your pain. But usually it's enough to see if the paint you want to use consists off one pigment. So, um, it could be very useful to study the pigments a bit better if you're sensitive to things like heavy metals that can be used as water color pigments. But usually, as I said, it's enough to see how many pigments are in your pain. And if there's only one pigment in it, then it's usually a good choice. Certain for certain colors, like greens, there are less one pigment colors available so often the's come, and so called convenience makes us so. These are mixes off to pigments or more again, If you're after transparency and have wondered why you makes us don't work out that well, then this is worth looking at as much as the information about transparency. It's also good to see how you can make certain colors yourself without having to buy them. Ready Made. I I have a few premixed colors on my palette because I don't want to spend my time in the field mixing color, so it makes it actually sense to include a few of thes convenience colors onto your palate . There's another good reason to learn a bit about the pigments behind your colors, and that's their color. Names aren't standardized, unfortunately, so each company chooses names based on what they think sounds best. So let's look at this. Winsor Newton called this. Remember this Waas PB 60 and this called end and three in blue. This actually close to the chemical compound that goes into this or that. This pigment consists off, so that's pretty accurate. If you look at the same pigment made by shrinker than you can see this called Death Blue and I happen to know that they have another pain based on the same pigment that's called Deep Blue. So it can really depend on the manufacturer. And most of them used the's fantasy names that you can actually not guess what kind of pigment is in them. Manufacturers can use historical pain names, although most historical pigments aren't used anymore because many were toxic or traditional names that were used by that company of, like forever our names that simply sound good to the marketing team. And in any case, you can't be sure what's in the pain if you don't look at the pigment number. So a color called ultra Marine blue can be a lot of things, depending on who made it. Some companies mix in white or some use three pig men's for it, and some simply use one pigment chemical, which is called ultra marine blue. So there's a pig men called Synthetic Ultra Marine, and this is what should be in your ultra marine color. And naturally, the hue and mixing properties for these different pains will also differ. So the actual pig man called ultra marine blue or synthetic ultra Marine has been given also a pigment number, which is PB for pigment blue 29 So P B 29 and this standardized approach of pigment numbers . Actually, the only way to get significant information about what's in your pain. So it makes sense to take a look at that. And since we're talking about Ultra Marine, I'd like to show you this beautiful blue, which is out for marine blue. So to make the confusion worse, there are versions off this ultra marine blue which are regulating, which is why I've put it up here. And I hope it will show its granule ation a little bit. And then they have versions which are very finely milled so that you get a really small pigment size and these will not regulates, so you can see a lot off the properties off paint depend on the pigment itself than the way it has been treated. And, um, also the way it may be combined with other pigments, and you can see the granule ation is already starting to happen here. Let's look at the same pigment from the same manufacturer that's not regulating. Actually looks a little bit different, too. I hope that you can see this. This is a little bitch greener, I think. And this looks a little bit more violet, but that's it's also ultra marine blue. And this doesn't grant you later, lot. So what? I want you to take away from this lesson. Study your colors before you choose them. Study the pigment characteristics. Don't be intimidated by the technical aspect off this and by the more nerdy stuff, because it can be really valuable to know these things. 6. Mixing And Primary Colors: before we jump in on the practical part and will actually set up the pallet. There's one more theoretical aspect that I want to talk about, and that's color mixing and primary colors. So let's take a look at that. Before you decide on the colors in your palette, it's important that you know which ones will give you the greatest versatility. Later. Colors and painting are a very important tool, and versatility of mixing different hues with each other to get new ones is really fascinating. Yet sometimes color mixing can seem very difficult or will not result in the colors that you'd like to get by learning about primary colors and color temperature, you can control this aspect better. Using from Marie colors for mixing is actually a big factor for getting better mixes and understanding how the intensity or the chroma off your primaries plays. A role is, too. By choosing your primaries, you can decide if you want a more muted mixing palette or the ability to get clean, vibrant color mixes like you can see in this color wheel. Since watercolor often relies on the paper wide that's shining through a vibrant palette is often a good choice about how to get there, Since water color often relies on the paper wide, shining through, Ah, vibrant palette is often a good choice. But how to get there? We've already learned their transparency and water colors will enable you to get more vibrant clear mixes, but that's not all there is to it. The idea of Primary Colors is that they can't be mixed from other colors and that you can makes every other color out of them. We all learn at some point that the primary colors are red, blue and yellow. But if you try mixing with these colors as your primaries, you'll get a muted palette. So let's actually try this. I have all of these in my small portable palette here, let's makes up some read and some blue, and you would expect the purple. Actually, it's a very, very subdued purple, so it's still a couple. But it's not what you would expect from a very vibrant. I mean, it does look different than this more vibrant Violet, doesn't it? Or was it almost looks Doc. The same thing goes for mixing green. If I take this yellow and then my blue, which, as it happens, it's ultra marine blue, and you will get this green. Uh, that's maybe even makes in a little bit more green. So this is actually not so bad. Usually, Ah, the oranges turned out pretty well, So this is a nice orange. I'd say this is pretty wide brown to, but you can see that these are probably less desirable. So, as you can see, it's pretty hard to get this kind off green from your yellow and blue or this kind of violet from your red and blue. So if you try mixing with these colors red, blue and yellow as your primaries, then you'll get a muted palette and the oranges might turn out well as they did here. But your greens and violets will be more on the money side, and now this might be what you intended to if you chose thes colors knowingly. But I know that for most beginning paint hoods, it's a big mystery why they can't get all of the colors from mixing their primaries. And the secret to this is that you've been using the wrong primary colors. If you've ever looked at the coverage is in your printer. Then you will see that they use different colors for mixing than we have learned are the primary colors. And that's all an imprint actually does. It makes us different hues by adding inks together. So this process is actually really, um, similar to what we're doing when we mix in color for painting for most printing processes all over the world today, the primary colors are yellow, magenta and cyan, and magenta is kind off. This very intense pink looks like this yellow. We all know yellow, so I'll simply leave it at that intends yellow. And then we have science, which is very intense, greenish blue. And we have already met this kind of blue when we talked about Taylor Blue, because oftentimes this is the basics higher and that you can find on your palate. So with these three, you can makes intense, beautiful secondary colors like violets and greens. Let's try this. So if I take my Taylor blue, which is already here in the mixing area, and add a good amount off magenta to it, then you can see I will get this really nice, intense violet, so it's much different from this one, isn't it? And if I take my yellow and at the same Taylor blue to it? Sorry, I think I was out of focus here. But all I did was adding this yellow and the Taylor blue. Then I will get a really intense green. So this looks much different from this one, doesn't it? And it looks actually more like the green that we can see here, and the arm stays the same. So primary colors are called that way because they can't be mixed. So whatever you do, you can't mix magenta or yellow or Scion. You can, however, makes a red and a blue from these primaries. So let's try that. I can take my yellow and at Magenta to it, and I will get pretty good read polemics, more magenta. It will go even redder. So that's a pretty good read. I'd say. If I take my science and add just a little bit off magenta, then it doesn't turn. Violet instantly know it turns blue, so if you can makes red and blue, then these campy primary colors so instead off using red and blue as your primary colors, try using magenta and Cyan instead, and yellow can stay if it's a really bright and clear one, and they usually are. So from these three primary colors, you can makes an amazing amount off different shades. Just look at the color wheel again. You can see it here. So now we've learned the right colors for getting clean, intends mixes and how to get a large amount off mixed colors. But of course, you don't have to reduce your pillow to only these three colors. It's always useful to have the convenience off a few more color options. And you can see from my small feel palette here that I personally don't like to mix all the time when I'm painting. So I have more colors on my palette as sort of shortcuts. So these are actually all the colors on this pallet painted out, and you can see I have the primaries and then other versions off the same primaries to get these more subdued mixes. Then I have a few convenience green, an additional blue for skies because it granulated and then I have some earth tones and a dark, because that's also very useful. You can use thes earth tones to sap you. Your makes us so s have few primaries. These are really great. And of course, you can mix neutrals from them. Generally, it's best not to have too many pigments in your mixes, so 3 to 4 are considered more than enough more than that, and you will likely get muddy mixes. So consider this when you are mixing multi pigment colors with each other, so maybe a green and an earth tone that's a calm bind in color, and it can work. But more often than not, it will reduce your vibrancy. So the amount off off light that comes through from the paper what will be reduced as an exercise for getting to know the correct heuristics off your color? It's good to know what the true primaries are and why only they will get your really clean and 10 secondary colors. So if you need them, you'll be glad you have the right colors for mixing. The good thing about this is that you can use this knowledge to get the effect you want each time, so if you want a more sub, you darkish purple. You can use your balloon dreadful mixing, but If you want to head, get an intense violet, then use your magenta and Cyan, so experiment and mix for yourself. This is still really the best way to to learn about these things. So we already talked about that. What I like to do in my palette and countless other artists do. This, too, is to have a few more choices besides the strict primaries, so that I can makes vibrant or subdued colors and that I can have a few shortcut colors like greens or earth tones. And some others like to describe their palate as a split primary pellet. You will likely come across this term when you read about colors and pellets and they have the vibrant primaries and they're subdued cousins or red and blue next to each other. And this actually what you can see here I have my subdued reds and the primary magenta. Then I have my scion, and maybe you can see this better on this small cheat sheet I have here. So this is my primary science, and then the subdued blue and the yellows up here, and a lot of pre made watercolor kids work like this, so they come with the same set up off having two versions off each primary color and then a few more to to complement this. 7. Color Temperature: when compared directly one off two primary colors can seem warmer or cooler, and this is where color temperature comes into play, Since perceiving the temperature off color seems to be highly subjective, can be difficult to figure out where you perceive a single color on the spectrum, so you always need a point of reference or other colors around it, and generally red hues. If you think fire or blood or sunset will seem warmer to the human eye, this is what associate with this. So these are here on the spectrum, and they seem warmer than blue. Who's if you think off ice, water or rain and this probably a remnant off our ancestors. So if you want to divide this color wheel, then you could do this about here and or maybe even about here, and you'd have the years warmer colors or the center off the warm colors on this side, and then these more cool colors on this side. So this leads to the question. Are Allred's warm and all blues cool? This is not the case in one color family. There can be warm and cool seeming tone, so you have to go back to comparing them with each other. There are cool greenish blues like took waas or this sort off greener sky blue that we have here cerulean blue. And then there are warm blues with a bit off red in it so you can see this goes towards the red on the spectrum. And so this is actually warmer than this blue. This is out for Marine. We can control the mood of our paintings with this and also generate the feeling off objects being closed off Far away cause objects that are close. Her usually have more warmth in them than far away objects. In practice, I think it's not always so that easy to determine if the color is warm or cool. And as I said, it's highly subjective. You always need another counter next to your color to comparative, and even that can be a bit tricky. And if it helps you, then use a color wheel Lexus that divides the war and the cool section on the color spectrum and two halfs. In any case, with a well balanced palette either described by different primaries or by different warm and cool colors, you can makes a large number off use, and this will work to your advantage when setting up a small outdoor palette. Your definition of primary colors can vary depending on how you set up your pattern, so you could have a subdued earth palette with OK and sienna tones as your yellow and red primaries. But if you want maximum vibrancy and the biggest range of hues, then you should make Sion, magenta and yellow your primary colors. You can still include the sap you'd colors into your palate to have more versatility, and this is also what you will see in most palates. It's It's a bit off a pity that we don't really have integrated these basic Hughes off Cyan and Magenta into our vocabulary. So Scion is often described as a greenish blue, and in fact it should simply because high end and blue could be described as a reddish side , and instead this would clear some off the confusion around these primary colors. As we have learned, color manufacturers often have weird labels for their colors, too. So if you take a closer look at a Taylor Blue, which is this scion here, then you will discover that the pig mend used for this is actually called Tail o Sion in blue. And this is where the scion resurfaces, so to speak. So in fact, Taylor Blue, which is PB 15 makes makes a great choice as the basic science. Now we've covered the theoretical knowledge that's useful when setting up palette, and let's take a closer look at the practical side. 8. Choosing A Palette: Let's take a look at different palates and examples for self made pallets. There are many different palette types to choose from. In this class will focus entirely on lightweight pallets that are portable and suitable for outdoor work. No matter whether you like urban or travel or nature sketching, you will quickly find out that painting on the spot in the field will require lightweight equipment because you have to carry it around with you. And if you don't have portable tools that are practical, you won't take them with you, and that means you won't paint. And if you don't feel like taking them out because that complicated to set up, then you won't paint or you won't sketch. Also, a portable set up will have more flexibility than a really big set up, so you can move around more easily. So I'm a fan off these small metal pallets as my field kid, as they're very sturdy, nice to hold and not too heavy, and they're also very durable, So rust only becomes a problem after many years off use. I actually had a pan it at home, that waas I'd say over 20 or maybe even 30 years old, and it wasn't a little bit rusty at this high, but it was perfectly usable. You can buy these as empty pallets or has already pre made kids, and then you could refill them with your own colors. After you've decided what colas you'd like, Um, there are usually these metal in lays in the palette that you could take out or modify to you needs. I find these. Add a little bit off weight, and I can put more colors into the pennant when I take this out. But if you wanted to stick your pens into this, then there are these these metal in lays that will fix the pants so you can definitely use this, but I always take these out. So what I use instead to fix these little parents to the bottom off the pallet is this need herbal adhesive, which is also removable. It's called Bluetec, or at least that's from the company that I have. Yeah, it's pretty versatile. I like to use it. You could also glue small magnets to your pants if you use such a kind off metal palette. I like this system because it lets me quickly exchange colors if I want to change the color in my palette on. As you can see, I also have bigger mental palette here, which is, surprisingly, not doesn't weigh much more than the smaller one. And I really like the additional space that I have for my brush here. So this is another pallet that I have set up, and you can see these have, um, thes are almost non basic pellets anymore. They have a lot of colors, but this this is how I like it. You can get these empty pens, which come in two sizes in almost every art supply store or, if you can't get them locally, the head there available online. And if you have an existing pan set and you have, um, used it up, then you could actually also clean your or pans and then refill them. So that's another possibility. The folded mixing areas in these metal pallets can give you a lot off room to mix colors, and I really like this, and I have found that the more expensive ones, like this one Bihsh Minger and I think the same one is available by Winsor and Newton. They sometimes give you additional mixing space. So, um, the cheaper nor coughs are fine. But sometimes if you want if you if all you want is another mixing well than having more off these little mixing wells can really be beneficial. So I know that in this size that usually the cheaper alternatives the no names give you less off these little wells here. So that's the thing to watch out. Fourth. Because if you if you buy one off these pallets, you will keep it for quite a while. And oftentimes I've stood with my little palate here and had to clean out one of thes wells because, well, I I needed more space to mix. There are also, or plastic pallets by different companies. Five don't use these because I don't like the fuel off plastic. Of course, they're very lightweight to, and you can definitely You can already see that you have a much more reduced mixing space than when you use the this metal palette. Um, plastic and metal can both staying a bit over time, so you could actually as a just a zey quick tip. You can actually remove some off these stains with a simple vinyl eraser. Some people also use brush soap to clean their palate from time to time, so that's also a possibility to keep your palate and good shape. If you want to get creative, then you can use any kind off small plastic or metal Tim like for makeup or for candy. I rather like thes small Minton's so you can fill them up with empty pens. Like I said, um, you can use this need herbal adhesive and then simply stick in your pans. A. So much as many as you like if you prefer to have a white mixing area than you could also spray this part with white enamel paint. Another possibility could be any sort off Tyne um, from maybe a box of crayons. And as you can see, I currently store my color pencils in here, but you could also use this is a way to have a little water come up hands in here. And this actually a pretty big pallet, and it has a pretty big mixing space. As I said, you would have to find a way to to make this mixing area a little bit more neutral. So maybe spray painting. It would be a great idea here, too. I really like ceramic plates for mixing in the studio, but I don't like to carry around the weight when I'm outside. So I leave anything that's heavy and that could break at home to use in the studio again. Don't get a pallet that's too big if you want to take it with you. So, uh, if you take something like this with you which holds all of my additional pains that I sometimes use in the studio, um, I never take this outside with me because, um, you have to hold it and balance it with all your other painting tools. And also it's pretty heavy, so I would never get the motivation to get it out and send it up when I'm outside. So something that fits in your hand or next away said, will be better than appellate with 50 cars also to to choose from the bottom line off, choosing tools for outdoor work is removed. Friction and remove weight and simplify your tools 9. Tubes Or Pans: watercolor is offered in cubes and in pans, and you might want know what the difference is and which type you should choose. And the answer is, it depends like so many times when you're first starting out. It might make more sense to get these small pans for testing, and many off these small field kids come with ease. Half pens. I found the system behind these little plastic pants very practical, so when they're empty, you can simply refill your own colors. And the's pence generally come in two sizes, so there are halfs, half pans and four pens, and you could really build a modular system with your pain. So maybe use big pans for colors that you use all the time. I m so to make it easier to access them with your brush and you small up hands for extra colors and you can't really see this year. But at one point I have this pellet sent absolute that I had three or £4 that were big, and the other ones were the smaller ones so small up hands you could use them for extra colors that you like to have around, but use less often, and I find that when you use bigger brushes, you will likely want to use bigger pants, too, because it's easier to pick up pain from these with bigger brushes. And you won't. Um, you know, shove your brush vertically into the small pan, and it will reuse the amount off damage that you do you do to your brush. So once you have empty pens, then you can choose which type of paint you refill with. So to paint, especially in these larger tubes, is definitely less expensive in the long run, so it makes sense to get a few off these tubes. Once you know which colors you use regularly, there also be smaller cubes, and these are usually the same prize as thes small half penn. So you decide what you feel might be better for you. I usually don't use pain that's freshly squeezed from cubes because I don't like. It's almost like the pain feels a little bit tacky and you pick up a lot with your brush so I usually fill it into a pan and then let it dry for a bit. And then it's also a portable system that I can take outside with me. With some manufacturers, there are differences between their cube and their Pam pain, so watch out for that. I know that Winsor and Newton to paint is meant to be used fresh and directly from the tube so it will drive very, very hard. And I have a few Windsor and Newton cubes. I simply like the colors and, um, yeah, I buy that you pain and simply add a tiny dot drop off glycerin when I refill my palate. So I at the pain. Then I add one drop off glycerin, and I stir it around a little bit, and this glycerin halves the pain to reactivate more easily. It's important not to add too much, but a little bit can really go a long way on. I sometimes do the same to colors that I know will drive very, very heart. This could apply to certain earth tones. I know that, for example, shrinker paint has the same formulation for cubes earned for their pants, so they're really exchangeable. Um, I'm not certain, for example, if Daniel Smith even offers pens, but maybe some off you know about this better than me. So um again, each manufacturer has their own system and their own differences. So I recommend getting a brochure or a colored child or emailing them so that you have all the information that you need. Help me. Watercolor pain can be stored for a very long time. It doesn't go bad. It can be reactivated again with some water. I recently found some very old pain in my parents house. It was It's probably around 20 years old, maybe even still older, and it's still reactivated beautifully so. But what if L. A paint is mostly binder and water, and the There are additional compounds that are for keeping the pain a little bit more moist and fresh, so these might dry or vapor rise. But most old pains can be reactivated with water easily, so usually you add a little bit off water, either with your brush or with a spray bottle, and then you let it sit for a while, and then you can take out your pain easily. And if you ever hear find, find an old cube off watercolor that's completely dried inside and hardened. Then you can still open the tube so carefully cut open that Huber and used the dried cake like like a pan color. So you might need to let it soak for a while, but you can put it in a pan and then use it up. So storing these cubes for a while and using them up over the course of a few years is completely finance completely normal. So some cubes are notoriously hard to open. And again, I'm looking at my friends from Windsor and Newton. Here they have I have to say that they have awful tube design. They have really small caps on that huge, and particularly when the pain starts to squeeze itself into the lid and into these metal pods. Then it can be really hard to get these two poems. Um, I always try to make sure that I get most off the color out off off these areas here, and but it still can happen that you will be uncooperative. So if that happens, then you could use pliers and try to open that you very carefully. And I usually flows my hand around it like this, and I make sure that I have a firm grip on this part off the tube, and then I go like this with my players. And if that doesn't work, then I try to put the tube in tow. Warm water head down for a little while so that the pain that is in this part off, that you can soak up a little bit of water and usually that helps. And if all else fails, well, you could still cut it open. Although this come become can become a big mess very quickly, so be a little bit careful about this. 10. Basic Palette Layouts: there are different ways you can organize the color in your palate. A lot of others set them up from light to dark or similar to the color wheel. And you can, of course, use any system that makes sense to you. I'm going to show you a few layouts that I have used for my palettes. One thing I always try to make sure, regardless off the layout is to put my yellow somewhere at the top or in a corner, because it's just so hard to keep the yellow clean otherwise, and that's really important. So this year is a very popular layout for watercolor palette. You start with the yellows and oranges and warm reds, cool reds and pinks, violets, warm blue and cool blues and then continue with the greens from cool to warm and then the earth tones and docks. You could also continue the greens like this, so basically turn around the lower half off the pallet. But I find this is a system that works very well, and this layout keeps the color families grouped together. If you want your palate to resemble mawr off color wheel, then here's another layout that I recently tried out. So the basic colors are sort of organized and ring with the yellow and cool greens at the top and then the blues on the right and the violets and reds on the bottom, and orange and yellow on the left so the complementary colors are more or less across from each other. Miss might be interesting for mixing. If you want to mix neutrals, then you can use your complementary colors. For this. I put my convenience green into the gap in the middle and the earth tones on the bottom, and I have this additional blue that I wanted to. Eso is nicely fit in here, another very logical way for the layout. Off appellate. This small could be to put your colors into rows so the yellows and light earth's in the first row, and then the reds and the oranges and the cool reds and violets and the blues and so on so that you have thes vertical compartments for each color family. Whatever layout you choose, you will get used to it over time and know where you color sit. One thing that I always like to have is a separate are separate mixing areas for the different color groups. So I make sure I only makes yellow in this area and makes my reds and this one and then the blues here and then my greens and earth tones down here. When I want to combine two different colors from these color groups, then I use a new area. If you choose to add gua Schweid to your palate, which can be really useful in some cases, then you should also make sure to put it into a separate mixing well so that your other colors won't be dulled because wash always has chalky parts and it and it will really dull your transparent colors. Otherwise, I already mentioned that it's really important to keep your yellow clean because it can be contaminated so easily by other colors. You can see that my lemon yellow has this sort off green gang sitting on it, and I really don't like that. Um, some artists foot a small dog off yellow into their green mixing area so they can add from from there to the green mixers, and they only reach into the yellow pen when they need the pure yellow. I clean my palette from time to time, so the mixing areas as well as the individual pans. I'm not against using what many utters call palette mud. So these are the undefined darks and muddy colors that will form over time. But I still like to keep my colors vibrant, and this will only happen when you have a relatively clean and orderly mixing area. And one thing that I add to every palate off mine is this small kind of color chart with callus watchers so that I have a reference and can remember which color sits, where and because when they're dry, then some colors tend to look really the same, particularly you can see the blues and the darks here, even some off the greens, and this helps me to to remember where everything is. 11. Filling Your Custom Palette: So now you're ready to assemble your palettes. So for this you should have all the colors that you want to use nearby, as well as your empty pans, your palate. So I'm using this metal tin here, and some Bluetec or blue or whatever you want to use to fix your pants into the pan It and also a pencil, a pen and some watercolor paper. I've decided to show you how I would make a tiny feel palette for this class, since I don't need another big field kid. So, um, I would use a pellet like this as a backup. Oh, and when I don't want to carry around even my my small field kid. So first I make sure that my palate is reasonably clean. And for this Minton, you could. I mentioned this before you could spray paint the area the mixing area in white with enamel paint, and to make the pants stick on the bottom. I use this notable adhesive, so I make sure to needed a little bit first, and then I just pull it apart a little bit and then place it into my palate. I try to keep it fairly even I know that's not always possible. So sometimes this can be a little bit. I'm cooperative, but in the end, well, it doesn't really matter. So I pressed the stone and so this is reusable, so that's really great about it. Then I put my pants in there, so I've decided to put £74 into this little palate. So as for the colors I have chosen transparent yellow as my primary yellow. Then Krenek wrote on gold hue as, ah, reddish yellow. It's a really lovely color to mix with. Then this is Ruby red. This would be my quiver learned off. Krenek wrote own pink. Then I have French ultra Marine. This is will be interesting because it granule aids then So this would be my warm red and my warm bloom. Then I have my tail Oh blue, which will be the science. So another primary. So all my primaries are thestreet three and then these ones. Then I have Taylor Green, which is a good basic green for mixing. And I have my burnt sienna, which in this case is transparency Anna, which is also grateful, mixing earth tones and sort of neutralizing my my other colors. This is as close to a split primary palette as you can get. I have my true primaries here, and then my sort off subdued primaries here and an additional green for mixing greens. And the tip for mixing neutrals would be to explore mixing complementary colors. So a lot of time you can get interesting raise from, for example, tail oh, green and magenta or from Burnt Sienna and French Ultra Marine. These make really great, great range of great different race. So I know I've mentioned he small Swatch cuts that I like to make to remember how I've laid out my colors. And before I start to fill in my colors, I would like to prepare this color chart, and for this pallet it will probably go on to the bottom off this. So I cut out a piece off watercolor paper that will fit on the outside off my palate, and then I make pencil lines and put it next to my working area, and I usually measure this directly and just make these loose lines so that I can see sort of the different pen shapes, and this doesn't have to be perfect, So feel free to measure this. Bye bye eyesight. When you're filling up pens or mixing wells, then make sure you don't use too much pain in one go. It's better to Philip pain pens and layers as the pain can get cracks when it dries. And this is also how the manufacturers to bid. So you use sina layers that will dry more quickly and evenly. I usually do two or three passes and let it each one dry, so groups and you can see the pain already comes out of this. If I only want to test out a new color that I might just put such a small block in the pen and leave it at that. And when I filled a pen, I write down the name in the according area off my color charts. So I remember which one I used in this case. This is transparent yellow, and I simply ride the name transparent yellow. Sometimes I will write on the name sometimes only the pigment number, and when the tube color that I filled in has tried a bid, then I will paint a color swatch off each color. I don't like to use pain fresh out off the tube. So this is why I let it dry a little bit, and this is how I would fill the rest off the pallet. So I squeeze out one layer off color into the palate and then wait until it has settled and dried. And then I would add the next layer and so on, and usually three or four layers will be enough. You don't have to fill the palate up to to the brim, and after a day or so, I come back to my dried pans and fill them up a bit more. And if it's one of thes heart, Ryan pans I again at a tiny bit of glycerin and stir. So since I want to show you what this process looks like, once the paint has dried, I'm going to exchange these empty pens with the pants from my other pallet that I have already filled. So you can see this is what it would look like after a day. Also, Andi, this is my connected on pink, which is a little bit full of still, and here we have out for Marine and the way I would add color on top off. That would be too. Squeeze a little bit to the edges are the areas where there's not that much color and then let the dry again. So I usually have a little bit less color in the pants off from the staining color. So actually quite comfortable with this amount of Taylor blue in my palette, it will last a long, long time. The same goes for Taylor Green and here is my burnt Sienna, My transparency, Anna. And this is my a little backup palette with the paint that hasn't quite right yet. I can show you how careful you have to be not to pick up too much color. You can see this blob of color on my brush, and I will have to spread it out a little bit. And for her to make just this small scullers watch here what? Whereas for the connected on gold, I can use a little bit more water and on have activated this beautiful dark yellow golden I don't know and I will paint swatches for each one of these. You could are also decide to make you wash Graduated wash to have reference off the range for each off your pain. So that's also possible. You can see that Taylor Blue. It's really, really intense. Then we have our Taylor Green here and the transparency Anna, which is great for layering. And when all of this has dried, I will use a little bit of flu tech and then fast in this on the back of my palette, maybe around the edges, a little bit more. 12. Class Project: Mixing Experiments: one idea to experiment with your finished pan. It is to play around with it a little bit and see what kind of combinations you can get by mixing. Or maybe painting a small color chart was with some or all of the colors in your palette. I personally find color charts to be a little bit boring, so I prefer to have a color sketch book where make my mixing experience. So understanding how to mix color will further expand your palate without having to buy new pains, and he will also learn how the different characteristics are. Certain pigments, like regulation or opaqueness will affect mix us with other pigments. So, of course, this is only a starting point to figure out how pigments play together, and you can definitely get started with ease mixing experiments before you put together finished palette so you could do these mixing experiments in your regular sketchbook or in an extra color sketchbook. I use a dedicated sketchbook only for keeping track off all of my mixing experiments, and I always note the pigments that I used and so I can refer to my results later. So this is what just a page off experimentation might look like. Here's a page with Doc's Page, where I explored the mixes I can get from neck rhythm Gold. Well, on the first page we had different greens and this sexually a great excess highs for a limited palette. Here I had a new color and played a little bit with it. Neutral tones also grade to experiment with, so, as I said, green as a great color to experiment with. So if you take even this very limited palate, you can see I have green with sort of single pigment green. But this is very unnatural looking. It's very intense and a little bit garish, and so I could make screen from all of the's yellowish or earth tones with two of my blue. So there are a lot of possible combinations for this, and, um, another great combination would be violets. So all of your blues and all of your red since I only have one red. I think what I want to show you is how you can makes great neutrals like Ray and Brown, since we don't have any off the's in this palette. Except for the burnt Sienna, this is a great exercise to see how far you can get with such a limited pen it. So for mixing neutral to usually combine complementary color. So colors that sit on the opposite off your color wheel. And in this palette, this would be my magenta told Macron, expert on pink and the tail Oh Green or the transparency Anna and the Ultra Marine. And I'm going to experiment with how, what different neutrals and browns and grays I can get and how I can change them to either side off off the spectrum. So this kind off mixing experiment is a playful way to get to know your palate, and it's mixing capabilities a bit better. And this is also a great way to see if the colors that you've chosen for your palate will play well with each other. And if not, you can always change some of them. So let's play of So let's make some neutral shows for mixing. I will be using this ceramic palate because just because the mixing area of this small palate isn't really that big, and I'm sitting here in my studio, and I thought, Why not take advantage of that? So I will indeed start with Mark from macron pink and put some Taylor green next to it. And this hasn't been activated in the body, while so it needs a bit of time. One good way to activate your pigments is simply, too. Spray them with a little bit off water and let this sit for a few minutes. So the way I like to do this is like you can see on the opposite. I usually start with one off the colors, then clean my brush and at more off that Connor so that I have the single cholera on each side, and then what I usually do it's makes them in the middle soon. If you don't like this approach, you could makes the two colors on your palate. Probably need a little bit more, so that will be more intense. And here you can see that the two colors make a mayes dark. Neutral. Isn't this beautiful? It's the bluish great Oh really loved that cover, and you can see if you add more green, what will happen them. Then it will become a greener zgray. Also interesting. Sort of like a dog shadowy green. And if you have just a little bit off the tail. Oh, Green. Then you will get dark red at a little bit more, and you will start to get this. It's almost like a violet, so you can see there are many different combinations possible. I'm going to just quickly add a mode here so that I can remember which pigments I used. And now I will try the same with my ultra marine blue. And if you mix this with transparency, Anna, then you can get all kinds off interesting Brown's and also raise. So this is another really interesting combination. And since the ultra marine nuts in this case, it's French out for Marine. Since this is granulated ing, probably my mixes will also granulated a little bit. You can see you get a from a darker brown, so this is a very intense bird. Sienna, this transparency Anna, and you can get all kinds off darker browns to ray. And sometimes when you use granulated in pain than in your mixes, then the colors tend to separate a little bit again after you have laid them on the paper. And I think that makes for very lively really beautiful mixes. Let me see if I I can show you this in detail. Can you see that? How The kind of separate in these mixes. And also here you can see the same. So I think that's really beautiful. Okay, maybe add a little bit more blue and see the dark blues that we can get. And with even more blue, you can get more a phone. This is a great combination for landscapes, particularly for clouds or for mountains, or for for ground. So we have another blue available. We have tail oh, blue available. So let's see what kind of neutrals we can get out of this one. So I'm going to combine this with the same transparency, Anna, and you can see this blue as much greener. So much cooler than that are from Marine. It's also very intense, at least who are both transparent, so they will give nice, clean mixes. You can see it's almost bit greenish, and here it will change into a brown very interesting combination, and I mix in more. So this is another wasting a bit more cooler brown, so you can see this is more of ah, warm like a maroon brown, and this could be almost like raw number. So even if you don't have these particular colors in your palette, then you can probably makes them. I think I already mentioned it that usually I have a few more colors in my palette just because I know I I would be able to mix them if I only had these colors. But I still enjoy having not having to mix all the time because, as you can see, can be a bit hard getting the same. Ah, the same shade, the same kinda or rather the same Hugh. And particularly if I'm outside painting in the field, then I don't want to do these mixing exercises the whole day. So this is what usually motivates me to include more colors on my palette. Them just, let's say, seven or eight or 10 colors. But you can get a long way with those, so why not try it? So let me just take a few notes here. Another way to create great neutrals is to makes all of the primary colors together, so let's try just that. I will make small color blobs here to indicate where they came from, and then our Taylor blue. And now let's mix them all together. And depending on what you mix in the most, you will see how your neutrals we'll change around a little bit. And in the end, in the middle, you should end up with a fairly convincing neutral gray. If you managed to have equal parts off all of your neutrals here. So if I found this pretty fascinating, okay, it's tried one more with the tailor green. So I have this Taylor green on one side, and then I'll try out the burnt Sienna on the other side. And this will also give me an interesting brown shade and more greens if I add more off the tail. Oh green. So another interesting combination. Another interesting approach could be to try out all the combinations that you can get with a single color. So I will choose Taylor Green for their, if only because it's color that I personally wouldn't use as a standalone color. It I don't think this can be found anywhere in nature, so I find it particularly interesting to combine it with all of the other colors I have and to do that I will just set up a few blobs off Taylor Green here on my mixing palette and then mix from there. So even if you have a color on your palate that you can't mix as a standalone color, it might turn out as a really interesting and versatile color. And here you can see the things that happen when I don't follow what I teach because I went into in my yellow with brush that what was not quite clean it. Now I have some green blobs in my you know, butt. Look at this intense look at this intense light green. It's really, really wonderful, like almost like a spring green, Um, and spring. I have this kind of green and my palate, and it's called. I think it's called May Green, So it's really, really still almost two intends. But I'm sure if you mix that then and here is another interesting green. So should always document this. So I just add some notes on here. We have, uh, when actor Dong Gold, you could, of course, do this and a little more. A little bit more organized fashion. But this is just the way I roll. Okay, Beautiful. You can get all kinds of different foliage greens from this combination. I think really like it. Now. We already have the combination off Taylor Green and connected on pink so I won't paint out this again. But let's try out out from Marine Blue. I think this was a little bit too much, so almost overpowered a little bit. So here you can see it makes for a really nice green blue Almost like a Prussian blue Like a dark took waas shade Also really interesting. I like it and I imagine something similar will happen when I catch a low blue to the mix. Another really nice combination. This is really cool when you want to paint glass or like crystalline structures. I have used this in the past four for glassware or for bottles. So this really beautiful too. And then we have, uh, transparency Anna. And this makes for very interesting. Another green shade toe leaning into the brown a bit more also very, very versatile. Very useful. Really nice. Just taking the note. So look at all the interesting green shades and blues that we got. So then this way you could continue with all your different pigments and just combine them with all of the other pigments that you have and see what kind of combinations and different intensities you can get. I'd love to see your custom pallets along with the color experiments that you did. So please share them in the project section. I'm really curious to see what cool combinations you have found, and, yeah, what your parents look like. 13. Final Thoughts: I love to see your custom pallets or mixing experiments. Please create a project showing the colors in your custom paillard and make sure to show pictures along the way. It's always so interesting to see what kind of pellets other artists use. If you want share why you chose this particular palette and the pick mons and the layout and tell us if you may be reduced supplies you already had available. Also, show us your experiments and some color combinations. I hope you've enjoyed this class and that you've learned a few years for things on setting up custom watercolor palette. If anything, I hope you've learned that you don't always have to go out and buy stuff, But you can get creative with the supplies you have at your disposal and end up with a pretty awesome custom palette. That way, if you want to be notified about more classes like this, then follow me here on scale share. I'd also be happy if you left a review for the class. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoy this class and that it wants useful for you. See you outside 14. Bonus lesson: Q&A: I wanted to update this class with a few things that I got asked after I published it. These are questions about mixed topics liked were used several pallets, how to clean pallets and about particular pigments and magnets. Yes, magnets. I love magnets. Just kidding. So I answered some of these in the discussion and on my blawg and on YouTube. But I know not everyone reads everything, so I wanted to make this available to you. Let's jump right in. So the first question is, Do you use custom pellets for botanical and urban sketching or landscape sketching? And I have to say I usually use one pallet only when I'm outside. I have enough colors in my palette so that I don't have to make too many changes. I will sometimes exchange colors in different seasons, especially the greens, but you can see that I only have two greens and my pellets. So, um, sometimes I will try out new colors or switch out colors that I don't use as often, and and I I like to make better use off the space where the old color was sitting in. I do have a bigger studio palate at home with a few colors, like took Woz that I use very sparingly. But to be honest, I usually use one of thes small field kids for everything that I do, and especially for outside painting. I really like this small one on. The next question is, what do you different palates look like? And, yeah, I already have explained a little bit about this. So these are the two pallets that I used for almost everything. And, um, I have added a pdf with all the colors I had in my smaller field kid Up until recently, you can access this, um, in the in the pro in the resource is it's it's a pdf file. So I've simply fight this small pallet s since then, and it no only has 14 colors left. And I did this partly because I wanted to use thes bigger four pens instead off a smaller pants so that I have an easier time reaching with my brush into these pen. So I'm using. I'm trying to use big brushes now, and it's It's a little bit easier on the brush reaching into these big up hands, then picking up pained from the smaller pans. So this is part of the reason. And I also wanted to simplify my palate a little bit. So, yeah, let's take a look at my palate. Um, I do have a white in my palette, which might come as a surprise to many watercolor painters, but I actually like to have a little bit off quash wide for highlights or just to mix with other colors. Um, I'm really not someone whose dogmatic about these things, So that's really not a big deal for me. I know that some watercolor painters don't like white in their palate, but for sketching, it's actually very useful. So I have a cool and a warm yellow. This is the basic lemon yellow, which I don't use very often. So it's a small pen, and then I have my transparent yellow with, which is a little bit warmer and nice and transparent, As the name says for my reds. I use connect around red, which is fairly neutral, I think, and you can mix a nice, warm and nice cooler reds from both off these kinds from it, and it's also very transparent. Then I have, um, color called purple magenta. So this is my basic magenta. Um, it's my cool red, and I actually like this other cool red that I have here a little bit better. You can see it's a little bit warmer, but I still have this this in the paint tube, and I want to use it. Absalom using this right now and for mixing, it's fine. I have a French ultra Marine and surreally in Lieu as my warm and my cool red, and you can see that both off thes are granulated ing, as are a lot of blues. Then I have Taylor Green as my basic mixing green, so I don't use this trade from the pan. But I mix it with other colors like yellows and blues and sometimes these earthy tones to modify this and then as a single convenience green. I have sap green here. Then my earth tones are Ross Una and burnt sienna, which are both really great for landscape and nature scenes, but also for modifying the colors. When you paint houses or architecture, then I also have raw Am A. This is a different raw umber than the one I have in my bigger palette there's a slightly more. It's a little lighter and slightly more green, and I found it is for me at least, a better tone to use, um, when doing when sketching from nature. So I actually prefer this one and also have CPR in my palette. That's also a very traditional earth tone, and I like to user to tone down any off the colors that I might have and also for some animals and some landscape scenes. It works straight from from the tube, so to say, straight from the pap. And as my doc, I have a neutral gray. Yeah, this is my standard grade home that I use most of the time you could also fought for a while. I had pains great, which is also a nice, great home. So these are the 14 colors that I use most, and none of these are fixed. I will actually sometimes exchange them with parts off my other pallet and see what I like better. But I thought it might be nice to give you an overview about this. My big of your palate is the one I use mainly in the studio, because I really prefer the portability off this small one when I'm outside. I also have a small wash palette with light colors that I set up at one point. But to be honest, I usually only used the white anyway. And since I have white now in my small pallet, I, um, leave this at home more often. And when I want to paint in wash entirely, then I have a separate palette for that, and I will show you that to in a moment. The next question is, how do you clean your palate? So how often and with what I will from time to time clean the wells and my palate to get rid off the marred the money colors and the areas that I want to mix clean mixes in, and it definitely helps to have a palette that has more off these small wells. As you can see, this palette is built so that there are more off the small wells that can fit in this area here. Yeah, how do? Actually, my palate. I mean, it's really easy. I spray a little bit off water on it, and I have been through this water's prayer here, and then I use my painting rag and just wipe it clean. And usually that's enough for me. So, um, I do this whenever I need a clean mixing space on Sometimes when I've set up the palette with new colors and want to have this experience like it like it's a new palette and, um, yeah, I usually don't take out all off the pans, although maybe once a year I will do this and then scrapped the whole pallet clean and then some off the pains, especially the staining pains, will stay in the metal parts a little bit. There's also happens with plastic pellets, and when I'm really a meticulous, I will try and get rid off this staining, and I don't see anything on here, but I usually will just take a vinyl eraser and go over red. And, yeah, well, it turns a little bit lighter, so it probably still has color in there, and this you can see it. It has picked up a little bit off dream, so you could also use brush soap for this. People use. I don't know, native Polish remover. Just make sure you don't get it into your paint and yeah, try out what works for you, and that's basically it. I wanted to show you another kind of palette that I haven't talked about at all in the video class. And if you don't want to handle these pants or don't like to fix them in your palate, you could use this kind of a foldable palette with pre made wells. And this iss, um, what I use currently for my gosh pains. So this little metal palette pretends to be from whole bind. This is what this h he is supposed to tell me, but I know it isn't because it waas really inexpensive and it's probably we are made in China like everything now, but it still has a good job, and I like it for wash pain. So, um, the downside to these kind of pallets is obviously that you can rearrange colors when you make changes. And since I only use a few colors for wash and don't change them a lot, this is really fine and a it works great for me that I don't have that many mixing areas that are in these little compartments. So usually when you make squash, the colors will stay in place, and you actually want them to mix with each other a little bit because you need these fine gradations. So this works really rate for me, But I wouldn't, um I haven't used it Will walk for water color with watercolor. I prefer to have more mixing areas and and more flexibility. But this very much depends on what you like, what you're used to. And I just wanted to show you that there are many, many options for pallets. Thes kind of pellets are also available in plastic, so they are really a lot off models. The next question is, um, in the class you mentioned Krenek Redon pink. What's this pigment? So I know I saw Melo talked about Protectorate on pink all the time. I apologize because this is actually a pigment that I don't have. And the Red Queen expert own pigments are often named a bit confusingly, so probably made this pigment up. I can't find it in this. Come out chopped by shrinky either. But if you we we were talking, I was talking about magenta. So your primary cool red or pink color and you can use a number off off cool reds for this . The one I used in my demos. Waas Probably this one, which is this? It's called Ruby Red. I don't know. And this is connected on red. This is the pigment name. It's a PV 19. You could also use what I have currently in my small appellate this purple magenta. So this is called Krenek riddled magenta P R. 1 to 2 and they say, Ah, you can use it as a basic color magenta. Then they also have this connected on violet PV 42 which they say it's also can be used as a basic color magenta. So you have all of these different connect freedom pigments here. They also have a free next redon magenta, which is another pigment. Um yep, it really doesn't matter that much. If you use one of thes single pigment reds Koretz, then you're probably find another alternative would be this pyro red, which is P. R. 264 This one comes closest to the traditional Eliza in crimson, which is not light fast, so it's better to use a modern pigment for this and any off. This any of thes will give you a cool red or cool pink term that you can use to cool down your Rachael Jones and two makes really vibrant violence. And if you compare the pigment names and particularly you these numbers, then you should be able to find the corresponding color so they will have differing names, depending on the manufacturer. I already talked about that. The next question is, did you ever have a problem with pains creeping out of pens? I only encountered this one's with pains that had honey add it to them. I used ah, White Knights ST Petersburg colors. These are student rate pains, and they have honey edit to them, which isn't a bad thing. There are many manufacturers who add honey, so I know synergy. And, um, I think M. Graham also used honey based pains, and these are very high quality paint. So the downside to to this Waas that they stayed a little bit sticky in the pen and they became running and it was a very warm day, and I transported my palate like this, and then suddenly the colors one color spread out all over the others. But apart from that, I never had any problems with the kind of pains that I use, but I also live in a colder and not very humid climate. So if you live in a humid climate, then you may consider using pan color. I know Windsor and a few other companies make their pen formulation differently. Them the tubes they use extrusion, I think. And they make these little cakes that they just set in the pan and their companies, like sh Minger, who poured just there to pen So they have the same per formulation for everything, and they they just pour that that Q pen into into the pens. But maybe the pen will behave a little bit better if it's made by extrusion in humid climates. I'm I honestly don't have experience with that to recommend something definite year. Another question. Waas. How sturdy is Bluetec? Would magnets be strong enough to hold the pens in? Well, now that's my favorite question. The one with magnets and so, yeah, Bluetec. It is, um, a removable adhesive, so it won't be a strong as glue anything. But to be honest, I have made good experiences with it. Um, the's pens are all fixed with Bluetec and Let's just try this out so none off the pants came out. It's probably a little bit different. If your palate falls down, it can. Pens can always come lose, Um, and yes, of course, you could also blue these kind of small magnets to your pans, but then you have to use a really good glue, and magnets can also rust. So it's definitely an alternative. I know I talked about these inserts, and when you use thes in the right way, and that is to say, you pushed thes um, flame just a little bit to the inside and then you insert your cube and then sort off, click it in and then it usually has enough off a force that it will stay in. And it's it's really fixed very well in the palate, so you could use the system. I usually I already told you I remove this because I want to have less weight in my palette , So that's the only reason to not use these. And if you're really concerned about pain pans falling out, then you're probably best off with one off these pallets where you have fixed wells. The next question is you mentioned that some brands make granulated ing and non granulated , ultra marine blue. Can you recommend a non granulated one? Yes, I can. And it's actually, um, this one here are from Marine finest, and it's Bihsh Minka. So usually are the manufacturers have these brochures where they mention if their pains are granulated or not. You can see this big G here, and then we have one out from Marine, which is very finely milled. That's the same pigment, but it it doesn't regulate. I know that whole bine also makes a lot off non regulating pains. Also very good quality pains. And yeah, I'm sure there are more out there if you know, if one then, uh, let me know. The next question is, what is the yellow you used in your color mixing video? Everyone seems to say just yellow, but there are many yellow hues. Yes, that's right. And, um, it's probably because for my mixing demo, it didn't really matter what kind of yellow used but this particular yellow waas again this transparent, you know, p y 1 50 and this is nice because it's sort off in the middle between cool and warm. and when you apply it in thin layers than it's almost a little bit like a lemon yellow hope you can see this year and when it's less diluted than it tends more towards warm and Oakar tones. So I really like this very flexible yellow for me, and this is why I like to use it. Okay, and we're through with the questions. I hope you found this Q and A useful and got a few tips and ideas from it. Yeah, let me know if you have any other questions, and I'll see you soon. 15. Bonus: My Field Palette Setup: I wanted to show you how I've set up my everyday sketching pellets. So these are two versions of my small sketching field kid. And this is the sort of palette that high practically use every day. I take this with me when I go outside for plenary sketching or furniture sketching. And so I have two versions of this panel, and one is always in my sketching bag and one I usually have in the studio or as a backup. And as you can see, these two are set up in quite the same way. So they have almost the same colors. Sometimes I exchange them. And let's take a look at what kind of colors I have in this pellet. Some following the approach that I mentioned earlier. I have two versions of each primary colors, so a cool and warm one. And so for example, for the yellow, I have a lemon yellow and then the stock Hawaiian is chromium yellow hue. And in this payload, sometimes my pellets have slightly differing colors. And this is because I have a lot of colors that I tested or that I still have in smaller tubes. And I just want to use them up. So I put them in my pellets and they are actually, so these pellets look really similar. And so the combos that I have here is quite similar to the chromium yellow, dark. And I believe this is from Taylor and drown you. This is from shaming. So it doesn't really matter to have the exact same pigments and plays. If you remember to have the, I'm certain harmony within your existing palette. And this is what I want to show here. So I have these two yellows, then I have an orange tone because I have found that mixing a clear bright orange can be a little bit tricky. So I'm happy to have this as single tone in my parent. And I have warmer and cooler red. And in this case, this is a vermillion red and then a meta, meta red. Deep. In this palette, I have a scarlet red and parallel maroon. So you can see It's just about the difference between these two, not about the exact tone, although these are fairly similar this matter read the parallel maroon. For my violin, I have dioxazine violet, which is sort of my standard go to violet. I really like HD, although it's staining, but I can get very deep and dark color application from this. And here I have experimented and I still had a cobalt violet. Floating around in my watercolors stuff. And it's really a nice, nice pigment. It's very soft and it's granulate heating, so it gives interesting effects if you use it and violent usually goes into my shadow mixes. As far the blues, These are the same, so I have the standard ultramarine blue that I like to have an every pellet, then a tailored blue, which is my cool blue. And then I also have a Cerulean Blue, which is nice for sketching because it gives you this instantly nice-looking sky blue basically. And my greens are basically these three green. So I like to have a warm green, which can be a Sap Green or hookers greenness case than the cool green can be tailored Green. And I also like to have a slightly lighter green in this case, this is a meg read. As for the earth tones, I have a selection of different earth tones. As you can see, I have yellow ochre or ross Yana in these two pallets. Then I like to have this Rama. And this is Rama by SHE mincut. So it's very light and kind of warm. And I also have a row number by Daniel Smith. And as you can see, these are called the same raw number, but they differ. The raw mobile Daniel Smith is Dhaka and a bit cooler. And so in the other pellet I have in this place CPR, which is quiet a bit darker than this one, but you can dilute it and then it has a similar effect. So this is my dark cool brown. And then as for warm browns in this pellet or have two different ones. So my burnt sienna, which is another standard color for water color palettes. And I also have a burned on my, which is darker and has less red in it. And in this palette, I, again, I wanted to experiment and I've decided to use mahogany Brown and this is a very interesting pigment. It's, again, it's granulate heating. So it will give you this interesting texture. And it isn't as red as the burnt sienna as you can see. But if I add a little bit of orange or a little bit of red, if I needed, then it basically does the same job. So it mixes nicely with blues to get this sort of neutral gray tone. So this is usually one of the most useful features that you can get from these Chernoff Earth browns. And as for my dark tone, I have a neutral gray in this pellet and then a Payne's gray, which is another classic color. In this one, they really don't differ that much, except for in the paints Cray, you will have a black pigment and the neutral gray is without black pigments. And I think that's basically it, except for this palette has an additional color that isn't mentioned in this overview. So I squeezed another another half pen into this one. And this is a chronic radon pink. And I added this because I noticed that it's it's primary color that's hard to get from these kind of reds, even when you add widened were always looked different. So for mixing and forgetting pinks alike, you have inflows. It's really a useful color. So I hope that showing these to almost similar palates has been useful to you. And this may, this makes more sense of the thoughts that go behind setting up a small sketching pellet like this. 16. Bonus: My Studio Palette Setup: I also wanted to show you what my studio pellet looks like. So this is slightly bigger palette. It has 22 for pens instead of a mixture of half and for pens. And so this is the palette that I use for client work. So for illustration work and sometimes quiet the detailed layer paintings. And I like to have really transparent pigments for this one. So these are my choices for my studio pellet. Again, I have added a wide because I find that even with my mostly transparent painting, sometimes I need a wide and it's really just handy to have around. Then I have a lemon yellow and a transparent yellow, which is a really nice and brilliant version of a basic warm yellow. I also have this transparent orange with, which is another brilliant version of an orange that can be used for very transparent layering. The one pigment choice that's probably the most opaque in this palette is this vermilion red. It's almost opaque. And I still need basic warm red. And so this is my usual choice for this kind of pigment. And then I have a dark red or dark transparent red. By the way. Almost all of these are by ashmem NCAA and I'll mention if there's another pigment that's not passion. Think about so far, these are all bash mink and this is just because I can get these at a very good price as I believe I have mentioned this, but you never know. So I'm not just shrink a fan girl. I am actually using these because they are quite cheap for me to use. So we have this transparent dark red, which is my cool red. And I also have a connected on pink, which is another cool read. And more like a primary. I'm magenta color. I have another another pink that's even closer to magenta. This is purple magenta. And yeah, sometimes I need an even cleaner magenta at home. Then I have dioxazine violet. This is the version by Winsor Newton because mincut makes a, a dioxazine violet that's not as light fast, so I prefer to use this one. And then I have an indent thrown blue here, which is also by Winsor Newton. And this is a nice dark blue. It's almost the same value as this violet part. You can, when it's not diluted and you can go very dark with, with these two almost to a black tone. Then here we have ultramarine blue. I used to have ultramarine blue finest in this palette, but I read out of it, so I'm just using French ultramarine fall for this. And I have a tailored blue, which is the standard Taleb blue, red shade for me. I have helio took was, which is sort of superfluids. But I still have it here because I needed to use up the tube that it came in and it's an interesting blue-green turns. So it could easily be mixed from from Taylor blue in this green. But I still like to have it round. Sometimes I needed. Then I have cobalt took was, which is another really opaque pigment. And it's quite the unusual hues. So I like to have it in this palette. I don't use it that often though. And I have helio Green, which is a version of all. It's the warm version of Taylor Green basically, and it's my cool green. And then I have a Sap Green, which is, I believe it's from Winsor Newton. It's a bit nicer than Nash mincut, Sap Green, But I don't really care that much about about the brand of this one because Sap Green, I always mix some other things into it because every Sap Green So far I've tried has always looked a little bit unnatural. Then I have this Winsor, Newton gold green, which is really a nice color for brilliant landscapes and warm green. So I really like to use this and landscape work. And then I have a number of really transparent earth tones that are from Pincus. So this is transparent, OCHA, transparency Yana and transparent. And these are really milled so fine. These pigments that he can build really transparent layers with these ones. And sometimes the earth pigments are a little bit on the opaque side, but these are really transparent. I also have this green Amma, which is a nice allied version of Rama. And it goes a little bit into, into the green, into the greens and the blues. And then as my black, I have a neutral gray and this is also, I think it's semi-transparent. It's quite nice. It's not too blue or too red. It's just this neutral dark tone. So this was the introduction to my transparent studio palette for illustration. And I hope this has been useful selection for you.