November 1, 2018

The iterative studio watercolour palette

I come from a background in Agile software development which has instilled in me a habit of running small, low-cost experiments to learn new things quickly. I take those new things I learn, and then iterate on their solution until I get something that works just right. It allows me to move quickly and cheaply.

I’ve approached my art career in the same way so far and it’s been working out a treat. I don’t think there’s a better example of this approach than how my studio palette has evolved over the years.

The problem is, I’m a sucker for beautiful art supplies. I’ve lusted for years over a brass studio palette with beautiful big pans and swathes of mixing area.

A beautiful, clean brass palette
Definitely NOT my palette. This is the gorgeous work of David Cooper from Classic Paintboxes. If I were to ever splurge, this would be the one.

But every time I think I’m ready to take the plunge and spend around 500GBP (that’s about 1000AUD at the time of writing YIKES), I just can’t imagine moving away from my super flexible, lightweight approach to what I’ve got right now.

My Current Studio Palette

It’s ugly, and probably not going to get too many Instagram likes, but I love it.

My ad-hoc, hacked-together palette has become a core part of my workflow and it’s been with me for 5 years now. It’s ugly, and probably not going to get too many Instagram likes, but I love it.

What’s my palette I hear you ask? It’s quite simply:

  • A bunch of regular old watercolour pans (60c each),
  • blu-tacked to a small piece of foamcore ($1.20),
  • which sits on an ergonomic, 15″ laptop stand ($129 – I’ll explain why I splurged in a minute)

So, for a total of about $144, I’ve got the perfect studio palette. And, until I splurged for the laptop stand, the palette cost was a grand total of $15.

Before the laptop stand, the piece of foam core was glued to an 4×2 block of wood so I could have it an angle. The reason I ‘upgraded’ to a laptop stand was mainly due to the tight space in which I work. I don’t have a fancy, light-filled studio. It’s just my spare room. But the constraint means that I’ve had to think very creatively about how I organise my space.

Some disintegrating foamcore
The foamcore has seen better days, but it still does a great job in acting as the base to which I blu-tac my pans.
Matt's watercolour palette
The foam core sits nicely on this 15″ laptop stand. The laptop stand means I can easily change the angle of the palette to suit what I’m painting.

The wonderful thing about using standard-sized, regular watercolour pans is that when I travel, I can just quickly pluck some very familiar colours from my studio palette and put them in a little travel palette and run out the door. That’s why you can see there are a few colours missing from these photos below. It also proves that yes, there’s nothing fancy, it’s just blu-tac.

An overview picture of Matt's ad-hoc watercolour palette
It’s easy to add, replace and remove colours whenever I want, like when I travel.

Using blu-tac has other advantages too. Not only is it good for travel but it’s also good for experimenting with how I arrange my colours. I’ve iterated on this a number of times too. Do I follow the colour wheel? Do I arrange warm and cool colours together? I can do a complementary colour pair arrangement if I want. In the end, I settled on an arrangement inspired by watercolour artist Jane Blundell. It’s a 3×3 grid of cool/warm/earth and primary colours. As I’ve illustrated more books, I’ve also added some greens and a few other specialty colours over time.

Matt's palette sitting in the assigned space
This gives you an idea of why the laptop stand was the right choice. It fits snugly in this corner and the support arm elevates it above everything, giving me plenty of desk space. It’s also within easy reach of my work area, my brushes, my water pots, and my mixing palette (which, by the way, is just a serving plate I picked up at DFO, Australia’s version of Home Depot) for about $4.

So there you have it. Simple, flexible and maybe not so elegant. In my quest to learn and improve I’m certain that the palette will continue to evolve both in colour choice and how I’ve arranged it. And I’m open to that, when the time is right.

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