I used to think that doing art outside was a hassle because you had to bring STUFF with you. By that, I meant you had to bring an easel, paint, waterbuckets, brushes, mediums, canvas, papers and so on. But lately, I’ve seen artists go out in the world and do travel journaling – and do wonderful watercolors without breaking their back to bring all the heavy equipment. That’s where I discovered the beauty of portable watercolor palettes.
Although, I have bought some of the portable ones like the Winsor and Newton Travel Kit and the Sakura Koi Field box 24s I find them very bulky to carry around and a bother to paint with while I am on the go. So I just brought the Winsor with me and bring a huge bag.
But as I was reading about people who do plein air art and travel journaling, I found that some carry their own palette in an altoid tin case. I also found an excellent tiny set from Sennelier from the Craft Central that was compact enough for my needs. So this is what I ended up with
At the lower right, I have my Sennelier Aqua Mini set that comes with 8 colors and a teeny tiny brush. This is an excellent starter set I got from Craft Central. As you can see I already tried it out on my Lechtturm and it is beautiful!
The Sennelier aqua mini comes with:
- Primary Yellow 574
- French Vermillion 675
- Cinerous Blue
- French Ultramarine Blue
- Pthalo Green Light
- Sap Green
- Burnt Umber
- Payne’s Grey
I think it’s a good full palette as it has some of the good elements of a basic pallette but I found it lacks some reds and yellow for my taste so I expanded my palette to another altoid tin.
- WInsor Newton Hooker Green Dk
- WInsor Newton Burnt Sienna
- Winsor Newton Lemon Yellow
- Sennelier Turquoise Green
- Winsor Newton Diox. Violet
- Venetia Cerulean Blue
- Winsor Newton Ivory Black
- Winsor Newton YEllow Ochre
- Venetia Rose Lake
- \Winsor Newton permanent Rose
- Winsor Newton Alizarin Crimson
- Winsor Newton Winsor Red
This completes my palette for on the go painting which I cant wait to try out! I used both sennelier and my palette for a quick test of my color wheel. for the circular one, I used sennelier’s French vermillion, Primary yellow and French ultra marine blue. For the color bar at the bottom I used the one from my extension tin, alizarin Crimson, Cerulean Blue and lemon yellow.
The Sennelier set gave me a good range of color, although a bit muted for my taste. The extension tin which I filled up with my choice of colors gave me some vibrancy that I love.
I love these colors and I do think I will use it! I also tried the brush but I probably won’t use it much except for detail work because its tiny. I will probably use my waterbrushes with these and just go to town! I can’t wait to see these in action for Food art friday tomorrow!
If you are interested to build your own you can do it with the following colors:
- Greenish Yellow – like Lemon Yellow
- Orangey Yellow – Gambogue/ primary yellow
- Blueish Green – Viridian
- Yellowish Green – Pthalo green light or Sap green
- Purply Red – alizarin Crimson
- Orangey Red – Vermillion
- Greenish Blue – Cerulean or
- Purply Blue – Pthalo Blue or French Ultramarine
You can also find the supplies with the following local suppliers in the Philippines
- DE’s Artroom – Daniel Smilth
- Craft Central
- Artisan Mnl – Tins
- The opinionated art store – tins and paints
- Artsy Lifestyle PH
- Artillery
- Oil Paint Store
- Deovir
- Art Nebula PH
- Craft Carrot
- Morning LIght
Next week, I will show you the contents of my watercolor bag!
Happy Painting!
