PORTABLE PAINTER MICRO     

Please visit our RESOURCES section for recommendations on limited palette strategies by World famous colorists including Jane Blundell.

https://www.janeblundellart.com/sketchbook-pages.html

Watercolor artists are typically very particular about the specific colors they use. This is all the more important when using a "Limited Palette" of six colors. It's remarkable how many colors can be mixed from six of the right basic pigments. There are many benefits to using just six colors:

They teach the artist how to blend pigments to reach exactly the colors they need: For instance, greens and purples will almost certainly need to be made from a mixture of blues and yellows and blues and reds. They also tend to create a more harmonious look to the finished work since all the colors stem from the six basics.

However, a "limited palette" by definition requires a lot of color mixing, so sufficient mixing wells are vital. That's where the Micro shines. It has a huge surface area available for blending colors. This includes some deep mixing wells that can handle a lot of liquid. The most common six color combination is two sets of primaries, with one a cool shade and the other warm (such as Daniel Smith’s Essentials.) But even within the two sets of primaries there is still a lot of variation possible. Artists often use different color palette selections depending on the subject they plan to paint. For instance, in Hawaii, the palette may lean more towards blues and greens, whereas in the desert southwest, it’s more likely that reds and earth-tones will predominate. It's worth experimenting to find exactly the range that suits your eye and subject matter. This is why an empty palette is a welcome sight!

Please visit our RESOURCES section of our site. You will find useful recommendations from professional artists, on color choices, pigment types, watercolor papers and other handy tips.

Small disks of re-usable adhesive are provided to secure the pans in the palette, though they can still be removed: Just use the tip of a palette knife to lever up the the edge of a pan and the adhesive seal will be broken. The pans can then be removed and re-attached as needed.

The lip is there to create a little more separation between the pans. This can help minimize colors accidentally mixing between adjacent pans.

We offer a set of 6 additional half-pans and 3 full-pans that are perfectly sized for the Micro. They are packaged in a clamshell.

*Please note that pans for the new Portable Painter Micro will not fit in the original Portable Painter Classic palette (which holds smaller W&N size half-pans.)