palette gluttony

On Facebook, artist Tim Oliver asked for photos of other artists’ palettes for a project he is putting together.  I can see his thread quickly growing to gigantic proportions! Artists do tend to love seeing the tools used by others.

This is my “studio” palette, holding one of every color I currently own. Many are leftover pans of paints I tried and will not replace when they are gone.

I keep these pans loose, not attached. That way, I can easily pull out the few colors that I want for a specific project without having to hunt them down amongst the mass of pigments.

These are my favorite “go to” palettes. I have many other do-it-yourself travel palettes — they are so much fun to put together! Other palettes not shown hold gouache or specific color combinations for special uses. But these are the ones I love using the most. I used to attach the various pans, filled from tubes, with rubber cement or blue tac. But more often these days, I attach flexible magnet material so they can be removed and switched around easily.

The pocket palettes are extremely portable, slipping into any bag or pocket. Most of the time, I use waterbrushes with them. The vintage Prang box and flat square metal box each have room for travel brushes; sometimes I carry fewer colors in these to make room for more brushes.

This set is made up of granulating pigments — Autumn usually puts me in the mood for lots of granulation, while springtime steers me more towards bright, clean colors.