Palettes, or Why to Stop Buying So Many Cool Art Supplies

What is your palette like?  Is it large with many spaces for colors or small and limited?  I have an embarrassment of the things in my studio and used to go back and forth between them like a little kid trying to choose the best candy.  Some have been handed down from other artists who didn't need them.  Maybe because they realized they had an embarrassment of the dang things..

A few of my palettes.  Yes, there are more.  Ugh..

When I first began to paint I wanted a tube of every color.  My first watercolor instructor didn't need her old Robert E. Wood palette and gave it to me.  It has 24 color wells and I gleefully filled it up as fast as I could afford that many colors. And promptly stalled out.  What I didn't realize was- all of those paints were overwhelming.  I had the paints and I knew what colors I wanted to lay down, I just didn't know where in the whole beautiful array to get those colors.  Having the tools and materials didn't make me an artist.     

Some of my color charts from over the years

Then, I came upon an article in the Daniel Smith catalog about using only 7 colors, by Susie Short. I tried her ideas and realized that I only needed to know how to mix a few basic colors to have any hue I wanted.  I owe her a debt for that lesson.  As I pared down my colors I began to understand color temperature.  I spent several years just making color charts.  I still have most of them. 

Chinese butcher trays.  I'm a sucker for anything with enamel on it.

Understand, I am not an expensive, high maintenance gal.  However, I think I was making the same mistake many beginning artist make- looking for just the right tool to help me transform my work from what I was making to what I wanted to make.  

Twelve colors are all I buy anymore and never use all twelve in one painting

Once I stopped searching, hunkered down and got to work, my paintings began to change.  I no longer haunted art supply stores looking for cool stuff and didn't even lay in the bathtub with the Dick Blick catalog for a whole evening lusting after new supplies.  I was in Tucson yesterday (a 2.5 hour drive to town) and stopped by the art supply store.  I ran in, grabbed the bottle of mask I needed and found myself chomping at the bit to get home and put it to use!  

My most used and useful palettes

How each of us makes that switch from searching for the right tools to using them well is a personal journey.  For me it meant going to college for an art degree and having to focus hard to get assignments turned in on time.  The tools became just that, tools, and I zeroed in on the outcome.  For others, it is finding the iron will within themselves to make it happen on their own.  There isn't one right path to take to get there, but get there we must if we want to meet our creative goals.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Alice