Journaling Superstitions #11: You Must Keep Your Watercolor Palette Clean

Above: a closeup of my Schmincke pan watercolor palette (these pans are factory filled with Schmincke paints). This is one of several watercolor and gouache palettes that I use at various times depending on the paints I want to use. I selected this palette for the today because I think it clearly shows how individual pans are getting “contaminated” from my brush while working, shows the spatter of colors in the channels between the pans, from quick working, and shows a fun mix of “turkey” brown (blue and orange) with individual pigments still visible. (The palette working space is something I typically clean off at the end of a working session.)

I’m not saying that everyone who has a pristine palette doesn’t use it, but in several decades of teaching I will tell you that every student who comes through one of my classes with a clean palette is more hung up on doing things “perfectly,” or not messing up his paints, or not contaminating his colors, than he is concerned with painting, with creating. It becomes something those students have to work through if they are actually going to spend more time painting than worrying about rules, or perfect palettes, or a myriad of non-painting things.

Every painter has to find a happy compromise between complete sloppiness that contaminates all their colors and results in unhappy accidents while painting, and that point where a bit of mess works out just fine.

I’ve read books on watercolor painting where elaborate "wet your brush, get some color, clean your brush, get some color," systems are explained. Many of these will work perfectly in the studio where water and endless supplies of towels are available, but out in the field where you have to work quickly you have to make some accommodations. For one thing, there simply isn’t enough water, whether you pack it in or rely on the barrel of your Niji brush.

Does this mean you throw caution to the wind and blindly put a “dirty” brush into any color on your palette? Nope. It means that you have to think about how you work and what colors you’re going to mix and have a plan that gets you there, conserves water, and doesn’t contaminate your colors beyond use. And the sticky bit is that this plan is going to be different for everyone because everyone paints differently and uses color differently.

There’s no way around it. You have to paint a lot of paintings. That's the good news. The more you work with your palette in a thoughtful way, the more your dexterity of mind, hand, and eye will develop, and you'll pick up speed. Certain things will become second nature.

A tip to help you along: when your painting session is over and the surfaces of the pans are dry, take a moist, clean brush and stroke along the top each pan to release the contaminating color so that you can wipe it off with brush or towel. (The brush needs to be moist, not damp. Don't create a puddle of color on the surface as this will create conditions where the contaminating pigments can be melded deeper into the pan.)

John Lidzey, a British watercolorist and author of several books on watercolor wrote in one of his books (though I can’t find the passage now when I need it) that one of the main mistakes beginning watercolorists make is being rigid about their colors and the contamination issue. The resultant paintings by students look garish and overly bright because every paint color is used as is. A little contamination can be a good thing as it knocks a color back.

I was saddened to learn when I made the Lidzey link that this talented artist passed away on April 5, 2009. I have always admired the loose yet realistic style conveyed in his watercolors, and of course his brilliant ability to mix and meld colors to bring a sense of atmosphere to his paintings. I hope you will spend some time looking at the gallery of paintings on his site, and at his books. There is much to learn from this artist.

Obviously Lidzey’s not advocating we let blues invade our yellows so that the only thing the yellows are useful for is green grass. There is a middle ground of which we shouldn’t be afraid. There is also a mixing that happens on the paper. All of this can be a thing to enjoy, not fear.

Another tip: when making a mix on your palette start by taking your lightest value color first with the clean brush, deposit the paint in the mixing well, wipe off your brush tip before you move it to your next selection. For the most part the darker value colors will hide the contamination better when it does happen. Also, if you are using a Niji waterbrush, when you take that first color to the mixing well you can squeeze out some water to clean the pigment from the brush tip into that well. (Judging how much water will be a learning process and depends in part on how much paint you picked up and how strong and undiluted you want the final paint to be.) This will make it simple to wipe the color from the tip before going for your second paint color. When you add the second paint color you don't need to squeeze any more water from the brush but simply pick up some of the first color and paint, blending the colors on your paper. That's the other goal: don’t over mix your colors in the palette mixing well—pIck up both colors into your brush and let them mix on the paper. It will make for a more interesting result.

Paint, paint, paint, mixing your selected colors to know what they can do. There is no way around this. If you stare at swatches in a book on color theory you may be able to memorize what two pigments when mixed should do, but you will have no sense of what actually happens in painting. Four-color process printing can’t capture that accurately in a printed swatch of color. You, your water, your paint, your paper, your brush. Each brings something to the final mix. The amount of water; the brand of paint and the pigments the manufacturer is using as well as the way the paint is blended with other components like ox gall and gum arabic; the brand of paper, the sizing on the paper, the surface texture of the paper; the size of your brush, the fibers the brush is made of, the way you move the brush, the amount of pigment it can carry. All these variables will matter when you try to duplicate mixes seen in a book. It can only be done with experience. You’re going to have to use that palette! It's going to get a little messy—and that's OK.

Note about the above Schmincke palette box: The boxes can be purchased empty (though this square version is no longer in their catalog but might be located at some vendor with older stock). You can then fill the box with Schmincke pan colors. Alternately you can fill the box with empty pans (these are all half-pans in the photo; full pans are twice as large and useful if you have certain colors you use a lot of) which you then fill with your own paints. (I recommend Daniel Smith or M. Graham watercolor brands because both rewet well once dried in pans—not all brands rewet well.) Also this box is made to carry 3 rows of pans. The pan retaining clips arin e attached to a base plate which lifts out. By sawing off one edge of that plate so it can slide closer to the top (in this image—right) of the box, you make enough space for an additional row of pans (see the row of 6 colors starting with yellow ochre and going down to a blue on the left; also look below that blue pan and you can see the uncut edge of the base plate and how it has moved to the right because its other edge was cut off; somewhere on my blog I actually have photos of all this but until I get that internal search engine going, darn I can't find it!).  See other palette suggestions in this post.

Comments

[Sandy]

Thanks for the tips! They are great!

[Donna]

Hi Roz, you will be happy to learn that my travel palette is a mess.

[Sydney]

I've always admired other artists' gloriously messy watercolor palettes. I have trouble letting my palette get very messy. I have to fight the urge to start wiping down the edges while I'm painting. Strangely though, even at home I'll let my rinse water get almost black before I'll think to change it. LOL!

[Roz]

Sandy, I'm glad the post is helpful.
Donna, I'm smiling broadly after reading this!
and Sydney it is funny, but now you get in there and muck it up! (I actually have two and sometimes 3 water containers in the studio when I'm painting because one has to be clean!)