Empty compact watercolor palettes, shown in three sizes.

Customizing Your Palette

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Art Toolkit Team

Technique | July 19, 2022

Our new empty palette option allows you to build precisely the palette you want. But how do you know what that is?

Setting up a palette is personal and depends on your preferences as an artist. Our range of palette and pan sizes lets you customize your layout to your needs.

Start with an empty Demi Palette, Pocket Palette, or Folio Palette. Then, choose your pans!

Empty Demi, Pocket, and Folio Palettes in black.
Empty Demi, Pocket, and Folio Palettes in black.

We have four sizes of pans to choose from:

Mini, Standard, Double, and Large stainless steel watercolor pans.
Mini, Standard, Double, and Large stainless steel watercolor pans.
  • Mini Pans are perfect for colors you like but don’t need to use all the time. Fill them with convenience colors or something fun like glitter paint. You can also use them to carry two of a light color, like yellow, so that you have one for mixing and one that stays clean!
  • Standard Pans are versatile and can accommodate larger brushes. Lay them out in the direction that you fill your brush!
  • Double Pans and Large Pans are ideal when you want to work with big brushes and stock up on your favorite color.

Our Mixing Pans and XL Mixing Pans are great for adding extra mixing space to your palette.

Once you’ve selected your pans and colors, consider filling your pan halfway so you can easily drag your brush across the paint. Then find an arrangement in the palette that works for you! Maria likes to work from warm colors to cool, while others prefer to build their palette out in triads, with convenience colors at the bottom.

You can also learn about our math project calculating palette permutations that we completed in 2020 here!