Creating palettes with different goals

For the many years acrylics were my main painting medium I didn’t really give much thought to color palettes.

As a self taught painter I didn’t really think about planning out a palette beyond pulling out colors I thought I’d need for a particular design. Trying to learn color theory seemed about as exciting as learning math ;) It wasn’t until I started learning watercolor & gouache painting that I started to pay attention to the colors on my palette and (gasp!) pigment information!

Lately I have been experimenting with curating watercolor palettes from my paint collection.

This is my current main mini palette, based on a split-primary system with most used convenience colors:

watercolor painting palette with color swatches and pigment names and numbers

Current everyday watercolor palette

My newest mini-palettes have colors grouped by color/mood:

  1. Top left: bright palette

  2. Top right: nature palette

  3. Bottom left: moody fall palette

  4. Bottom right: super mini travel palette

I’ve found that challenging myself to use each palette individually on a painting really teaches me to mix colors more, and find some new surprising colors as a result. I highly recommend giving it a try!

What are your favorite color palette combinations?

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Rainy weekend painting