In June while I was getting ready for a week-long watercolor class I posted a photo of a “travel” palette I had set up with the colors suggested by the teacher. Several people asked about it and I thought now, having used it awhile since I’d give a few thoughts about it. Here it is right after I loaded it up with paint.
Here’s a closer look from the other day when I was out painting. I wish I had taken a better view but I was interested more in what was going on in the seal area.
This is after I washed it with just some water and a fingernail brush and a couple paper towels. I thought I would be taking out the gasket that you can see but it didn’t seem to want to come out and I didn’t want to dig it out and then not be able to get it back in.
There are a number of brands of this type of palette out there. I got one that is rather generic and this is a popular brand – Mijellio Fusion Airtight/Leakproof Palette. I honestly don’t see any difference between the two palettes (except someone had nicked the removable inner mixing tray out of the generic one, but since I never take it out of the one that has it, I’m not too worried about it) other than the color of the lid.
I do like the size of the wells and the size of the mixing areas and it is fairly light to carry. I set it on top of my pochade box in its travel bag and it rides flat. I started doing this because it wasn’t really dried when the class started and it was very hot and humid that week so it never really dried then either.
I don’t find that paint beads up, but I don’t worry about that anyway. I don’t remove the clear removable tray to use as another mixing area although I’d be tempted to put additional globs of paint on it for an extended palette sometime. Until then it just sits in the lid as my bigger mixing area.
I DO find that some colors – cerulean blue I’m looking at you dude – will not stick to its well. That one in particular but also the orange (also a stickier, less drying paint) and others have at times slid right out of the well into the mixing areas. I use a bit of broken credit card or plastic knife to scrape them back into the well but it’s messy.
This led to the messy edges but in all honesty nothing seems to escape out of the palette so I am grateful for that. Someone had asked if it kept the paint moister and I’d give it a “sort of” – the paints that are stickier by nature stay stickier and I’d say the rest are perhaps marginally easier to re-wet.
So there you have it yet another palette review for the world.
