State of the Palette, May 2022

Here’s the new setup for spring plein air season. There’s nothing quite like a fresh palette!

And here’s my painted version, which is handy to have in my sketchbook.

The palette is a Herring plastic folding palette. It has 12 pan-sized wells but you can also put 2 half pans in a well if you need more colors.*

I love this palette! I hold it in my left hand when I paint. It’s light, has plenty of mixing area, and won’t rust in the salt air.

*Note that in space #2 there are two half pans. Both of them are filled with Azo Yellow in hope that I will keep one clean and use the other for mixing greens.

A few of these colors are new to me, such as Permanent Green Light. I normally don’t have a ‘tube green’ in my palette but I thought I would try it out since I go through a lot of blues and yellows when mixing green. I can use the Permanent Green Light as a base color, adding other tones to make it warmer or more neutral.

All of these are M Graham, except for Neutral Tint by Daniel Smith.

Here’s the line-up.

I’ll use this color palette over the next month and see how it works.