An Artist's Palette

What is an Artist's Palette?

There a couple answers to this question. It can be a selection of colors and it is the surface that holds those colors.  I use both definitions as do all artists.  For instance, my selection of colors for a painting is most typically a limited palette.  Preferring to mix and blend, I select five or fewer pigments for each work.

The palette selected for a desert plant painting.

If you look up the definition of palette you will find that it is 'the board on which an artist mixes their colors.'   Being a person who likes to reuse things I frequently use old plastic tubs and containers for my palette, the place where I place the pigments, and because I paint with acrylics which dry very quickly I need a palette that has a closing cover.  You see here that my current palette is the bottom half of a container that at one time held a salad.  It is a bit of a clam shell affair, so the top is placed over when I am not painting which keeps the paint fresh.  

Because I like this particular palette container additional pigments were added when I started a new painting.  I kept to my limited selection of color using the new and ignoring the old.  The palette certainly began to take on a bit of a messy look.

Then when I got into a third painting more color was added.    This was a bit unusual for me.  I normally start each painting with a fresh palette.  Again, I have to say, I like this particular container, so I have just continued to add to it.  Then I started a fourth painting and an interesting thing happened, a serendipitous effect.  Quite accidentally a bit of the magenta, which was used in a floral painting, was picked up by the brush while working on a Tahoe Rock painting.  

Split

48x36

3500.

Currently exhibited at Spirit Gallery, Truckee, CA

Now my use and reuse of this palette container is causing me to use a new palette (colors) in some of my paintings.  I rather like this idea of allowing fresh new color to come into my work.  

And there you have it....An Artist's Palette....with a bit of a digression telling how it works for me.

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