Why YOU need a curated watercolor palette...and my scary overhaul! 

It never ceases to surprise me when RU-vid content providers say that they get negative comments. I just don't understand the need to be a downer to someone else's joy....Thank you, Sandy, for this video! I'm ALWAYS interested to see what other people have in their palettes. It often gives me ideas for MY palettes. ❤

Such a wonderful video! Now, let's all take a moment of silence for the colors leaving the island... 🏝

I love your videos! I love Verditer Blue. It's granulating because it is actually a cobalt blue, except the green shade version. Yes, I can see why DS Indian Yellow would have the pigment moving ability because its made with PY150-Nickel Azo Yellow in it. Awesome! I see one of your red choices is only marginally light-fast. That used to matter to me once upon a time but not anymore. I stopped painting for hanging on walls. Blessings.

Thank you Sandy. I See you use colours that i never coud use, i live in Norway and have another light. But i love the light blue, greens

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and beautiful paintings

Oh man!! What you did with that ultramarine turquoise was incredible! it made for gorgeous waters which reminded me of the waves in Hawaii, where I lived for 32 years. Really interesting palette and it was really informative to hear why and how you made the choices you did. I can see you are an artist always looking for new colors to keep your interest fresh. Great video! I just subscribed!

I first thought that verditer blue was the pigment used a long time ago and thought .it might be interesting to get, but then I found out it is actually a mix of cobalt blue and chromium oxide and white-so if anyone has those colours they can mix it themselves. I do not at sll mean to be critical-just a tip for those who want to test if this is something they would like-paint is so expensive nowadays! Very interesting to see what you did w chorme oxide green-I have it but it has seldom been used so thank you for bringing it up to light!

Your landscapes are awesome.

A aha moment for me! Your comment about ‘Learn your colours without many to choose from’. Thank you thank you thank you. I keep buying a pan here and a tube there from different brands and have landed up with too much and now I am overwhelmed. thinking I need to use them all and end up even more confused with what I love, how something works and how a pigment and me can stretched..or limited as the case might be. Seriously thank you. Been struggling so much not with the buying but with the confusion the buying is creating in me.

I love exploring new combinations so I keep colours in pans and then put them in small pallets for a short period of time to do a few pieces…..almost at random. One of my most unexpected successes and which I’ve retained ever since through several refills because I always go back to it is a six colour pallet that consists of: French ultramarine, burnt sienna, phthalocyanine turquoise, carmine (or a similar strong dark pink), Naples yellow dark (or yellow ochre) and buff titanium. When you think about it, it’s two different blues, two sort of yellows, a red and then the titanium. It works really well as a muted palette for anything outdoors, old buildings and landscape elements and for people sketches. The turquoise and carmine give great pops of bright colour if needed but are easy to mute to get harmonious pictures. You can get greens from mixing and a delicate pink or blue from diluting. I don’t do city drawings so it might struggle there, but anything natural it’s a good pallet.

Thank you for this particular video. I returned to painting in my late 60s and have been working towards finding my “voice”. It seems I have been instinctively working towards a palette I am comfortable with (curated! it would seem) the last year. I will further refine with the warm and cool for the colors. Thank you again. I’m subscribing!

I like my color swatching, but I use an atc card size and try to do a graduated wash with each color that has a black line so how opaque it is at varying strengths shows. The big swatch also lets me see differences in how brands differ. Interesting choices for swapping out.

I bit the bullet and invested in a set of Windsor Newton professional paints. That's going to be my 2024 palette, but I also have a good back up and several practice paints from Rosa Gallery. I'm good to go on paints and palettes.

Best advice: when you said to watch the person paint with their palette choices rather than saying that’s a terrible choice. Looking forward to seeing your paintings from this palette. I’m familiar with the colors on the left but a few on the right side are new to me.

Sandy, I LOVE your hair long!

What a great tip, using new (and old) colours in context, rather than in swatches. Will try that in the future. Thank you for the tip. I just recently bought Moonglow and would LOVE to see you use that colour in a tutorial (please). Esp. mixed in a more colourful painting context.

This was a really good video! I took a color class and in the outline the instructor said we only needed the three primary colors for her class. That alone was interesting to find three true primary colors? The instructor lasted three classes only before she started “ adding” pre mixed paints to achieve the colors she wanted. I learned on a split primary palette without realizing what a gift that was. I love color but found you needed to add very few colors to achieve the color you want. I find the vast assortment of colors offered in art catalogs almost confusing. Good for the seller and bad for the buyer. It does depend on your art media. I primarily work in watercolor. When I work in pastel I do use a larger palette. Can’t wait to see how this years palette works for you. Color is the spice of our art meal.

SANDY - thank you so much for all your fantastic videos, tips & BEAUTIFUL artwork!! Not only are you a great artist - you are a great TEACHER of art ( & other things, too). I feel so inspired after watching your videos..... and well - HAPPY! 💛💛

I have a base 12 colour palette, and over 12 colours it becomes more difficult to decide which ones I should include in my palette and which ones I shouldn't. Maybe my colour choice will inspire someone. It's just my personal choice that I found out for myself and few colours are also based on which pigments are not that expensive and not just based on how practical they are when mixing, because I make my own watercolours. A neutral yellow is important to me, I find it more difficult to mix a neutral yellow from a greenish or orangey yellow with another colour, the other way around, making a neutral yellow greenish or orangish is easier for me. I use Hansa Yellow Medium PY74. A neutral red like Scarlet Transparent PR254 to mix intense orange tones, muted purple tones, red brick colour and for anything red like buses, flowers and so on. Quinacridon magenta PR122, for intense violet tones, slightly muted orange tones and for flowers. Ultramarine Violet PV15 to have a granulating, gentle violet, which creates gray tones with yellow and to mute green tones, for example green-silvery leaves such as sage. Ultramarine reddish PB29 granulating blue for muted green tones of European plants, mixing granulating violets and skies. Phtalocyan PB15:4 as a neutral blue, it is not quite as greenish as the 15:3 variant. For slightly less intense green tones than PB15:3, but with PR122 it can mix slightly more intense violet tones, which do not granulate. Cobalt turquoise PB28 absolute tropical sea colour, I hardly use it for that but to mix bright, intense granulating green tones, with ultramarine violet it also works well for coloured skies. Phtalogreen PG36 to shorten the mixing path for green and have a complementary colour to scarlet. Siena Natural French PY43 slightly more orange than most and not as yellow as ochre, as a muted alternate to yellow. Siena Burnt French PBr7 a little redder than others with PBR7, but not as intensely orange-red as PR101, together with Ultramarine reddish, they are my landscape triad. Caput Mortum PR101 together with ultramarine violet creates special tones for landscapes. Umber natural PBr7 I have an extra greenish version, it is also a colour that is difficult to mix, but super practical for muting other colours. I have found out that I need natural umber more often than the burnt version.

Oooo super excited to see how you use these new colors bc I have so many of these! I would love to see how the hansa yellow light mixes with the three different reds to get different corals and oranges. I like orangey peachy coraly hibiscus and roses. Im mentally preparing myself for getting back to painting next month. Idk why I have to mentally prepare for being free but dat my brain🙃😂

Thank you Sandy. This was a very informative video for me and will help me in finding my voice in colors. Now I think I understand what you mean by that. Also, I think your hair looks very pretty long too. 😊

You can't undo learning, only add another piece! 😁 Delightful video, my first of yours. I have signed up, and look forward to perusing your playlists!

This is SUCH an informative video on how to choose colors for your palettes. Love it! Thanks for sharing.

Sandy! I always love seeing your palette updates and most of all they what made you boot out the colors/why you chose the new ones. Loved seeing your mini test paintings! I've had chromium green oxide on my palette for a while now, I think it's a really underrated color! I don't have most of the colors on your palette, but I'd try mixing it with Payne's, any yellows, any blues and see what it does. You can also make an opaque Venetian red mixture with some reds.

It is so fun to see what people have on their palettes! You can learn so much if you listen & observe why artists use certain colors, rather than rejecting their choices out of hand. The new color that most intrigued me is green chromium oxide the only opaque color. I’d like to see how it mixes with Indian Yellow & with Quin Rose. Verditer, Payne’s Blue Gray, Sap Green, & Moonglow are in my top paints as well! Thanks for sharing! Very informative!

I absolutely love your hair, including color and style🥰

That ultramarine turquoise is absolutely gorgeous !

I love this palette of colors

Chromium Green Oxide = I keep trying to "make it work", Sandy! I dont think it likes me! 😂

Very informative. Thanks so much. I learned so much. Can’t wait to see what you do with your new pallet!

Hello from Beautiful British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦

Great video and great information. And always great encouragement!

I love your approach, especially trying out color choices in small paintings. Your palette looks very exciting to me and includes some colors I already use, some I’ve considered and a couple I never thought about, so you aced it! It will be fun to see what paintings you make with this palette.

How about permanent red deep and sap green? I am really interested in that red. I already have sap green. I figured you can make some neutrals with these two and make it not Christmas-y. I’ve also got my eye on that verditer blue - how verditer blue and Indian yellow?

It was great to see your paintings & the reaction of each paint.

what a fantastic palette ☺☺☺

I'm so excited to see the new art. The blue and turquoise in particular.(I'm going to work through my many tubes this year) I evaluated and tossed a few but that still leaves a crowded list. It's going to be a fun year 😊

Wow, love the House of Hoffman palette. Worth every dollar if you ask me. And that Sandy Allnock stamp at 2:45, where/how does one acquire such a magnificent piece? By chance do you have a video about it?

Although I have been painting for over 10 years(acrylics until this past year when watercolor caught my eye) I am self-taught and have done NONE of this color theory and color mixing. I feel like a completely new painter - like I’ve been living around the corner from real painters and have finally moved into the neighborhood- but still totally unfamiliar with the area. It’s humbling and quite overwhelming- being an adult and basically learning from scratch- though I have several paintings I’ve done over the years. Thanks for this helpful and insightful video. I want to learn and grow as well. Your art is simply stunning! Looking forward to more videos. Cheers!

The Verditer blue is fabulous! Love all your new additions.

Thanks!

Great topic! Not a specific color combo, but I find red + green mixes fascinating.

Cool!

Your hair is so pretty!

I've heard Moonglow isn't light fast. Have you checked into that? Might not be good for works you are selling. Just a heads up. Nice color choices.

My partner gifted me with sooo many paint colours. Its been a year and I am finding my regular palette just by recognizing my go-to choices and also my 'heroes'. I don't use a Paynes' Grey but tend to go for Hematite brown which for me makes beautiful subtle neutral darks from the rest of my palette.

Certainly you need to make things easy for you. I get a notification from RU-vid, so for a few minutes it baffled me! See you online! And be safe! Bonnie

Every person has different needs and colors. It's not their choice or mine, it's only yours.

This is great advice. Thank you! Where I’m brand new to watercolour, I created a swatch sheet just so I know what’s in my palette. In my large half-pan plastic palette, I have all thirty colours I purchased. …like with fountain pen inks, there were just too many blues I _loved_! In my ceramic palette, it ‘only’ holds twenty paints, so in addition to Payne’s Grey, Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna that I seem to see on all professional artists’ palettes, I also chose three reds, three yellows, three blues, a couple of oranges and greens. On the same palette swatch sheet, I also mixed three different colour wheels with one of the blues, yellows and reds. Because I’m still confused on what makes a warm yellow or a cool yellow, as I tend to call them a bright yellow or a dark yellow, having the pre-mixed colour wheels helps, so it at least gives me a starting point and a frame of reference, so I have an idea of what I’m going to get. Thank you so much for your videos. They’re very helpful!

I’m loving your palette and color selection. I would love to see you experimenting with verditer blue, lunar blue and ultramarine turquoise. Can we get a demo painting studies?? Pleaseeeeee

Great job and informative!

Useful lesson. Thanks.

Thanks Sandy! Great advise! 👍🙏🏻❤️

I'm in the same process as you and slowly removing some colors from my palette. It is actually freeing to remove a color I rarely use and forces me to limit my palette. My main palette has 30 wells with 27 filled and probably need to remove another 2-3 colors. It's a porcelain palette and for studio use. My plastic travel palette has 22 wells with 2 empty spaces. You're right.....18 colors is more than sufficient. BTW I love your House of Hoffman palette......they are special ....I'll probably never own one....but have drooled over them. A painter friend has one similar to it that he got eons ago and it's still going strong.

Ooooh, would love to see how the verditer blue mixes, especially with transparent red oxide! I’m thinking of putting together a six colour palette, to take on a trip round Europe, we’re travelling by motorbike so space is VERY limited! Need a blue that will make skies and lakes, but will also mix with TRO to make interesting greys. And what would be a good yellow to mix greens with it, so I’ll throw the Indian yellow in there too, I totally get what you mean with nickel Azo yellow, so this could be a contender too!

12:18 Beautifully painting!

Help a frugal gal - how do you part with colors that you thought you wanted - but just don’t use? Do you just box up the misfits “just in case” you want to return?

Thank you for your wisdom and encouragement.

Loved your video. Great tips. I'm going to try a limited palette!

I prefer to study and use all the colours and limit myself for each artwork. There is no one ‘right way’. Just as you said not to judge your colour choices please don’t judge if people want to use hundreds and can keep track of them all and their properties. I limit by individual painting. I’ve been happy limiting by painting not overall. If this works for you then great but it’s not the correct path for everyone and I hope people Don’t limit themselves too much if that’s not what inspires them as an artist.

Fun video! Nest to hear your color choices. I’m a very slow turning ship with colors. I very rarely change mine. Enjoyed the vid!

Came here to say, love the video and especially, your hair is BEAUTIFUL. Thanks for sharing!

I didn't quite understand the assignment re: the color combinations......could you clarify? Are we taking one of your new colors and then suggesting 2 more colors that are not in your palette to go with it?

What a wonderful find! I love your work. Thank you for sharing!

Great video! Loved hearing your reasons for your choices.

Question: what do you mean by "granulated"? I love the paintings with the greens, especially the one that looks like the Scottish highlands. Indian yellow, cascade green, and lunar blue. 😊💛

Thanks for this video, appreciate you posting this. Looking forward to seeing your mixes for greens, oranges & purples using indian yellow, ultramarine blue and your 2 new reds. I'm waaaay down at the bottom of the color mixing learning curve (and watercolor in general) so I currently just play around with a lemon yellow, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, alizarin crimson and cobalt blue - and then reach for a convenient green like sap and cascade when frustrated. I'm also interested in the neutrals you are now using and how they work with the yellow ochre and transparent red oxide - I'm thinking these will be lovely combinations for landscapes and i rely on burnt sienna & payne's gray a lot so these combinations would be fun to see. Thanks again

I realise just did that; get a curated palette. I've been collecting a 30 pan palette sort of randomly, but I wanted to start moving to full pans so I filled up my old, smaller tin with just my favourites. Got down to 16 colours. And of course that's the one I want to paint with all the time, that's the one I do mixing charts for, and that's the one I'm always evaluating; do I like this colour? Do I really use this colour? How could I add that colour, and so on. Finding it hard to remove any more, I use a white for example and a beautiful orange, and I like my convenience colours. I agree 12 to 18 colours is a kind of "sweet spot" for one's main or working palette, I've become much more involved with my paints using a smaller selection. :)

As a self proclaimed pigment nerd I would really like to hear the pigment numbers. Some brands do really weird things with their color names... And in that context what is verditer blue, never heard that color name before, off to google it😅

Subscribed just so I can see how you like the new palette! I have a big palette with about 30 wells, but I’m only using about 8 right now. The others are for when I find something I want to experiment with, or if someone is painting with me. If the experiments are a success, then other colours will find their way in, but I plan on keeping the palette about half full at any given time and use the wells as more mixing space.

Your new colors are interesting and will be anxious to see how they work in pictures. Have a question for you. What shade of blue do you for skys with Copic pens? I struggle with the sky! Also what shade of blue in Tombow is best? HELP! Thank you.

Very new. Trying to set up a basic pallet. I have Daniel Smith and also some Windsor and Newton. Feeling overwhelmed! Are you using Daniel Smith? Thanks! You are so pleasant and easy to listen. Love your videos

How do you get the “old” colors out of your palette? I have a palette like yours and you can’t just pop the pans out…there are no pans.

What a super helpful video. I've played around with budget sets, and I'm trying to get some good watercolors now. I've done my research and picked a few things up on sales... now I'm trying to figure out a format to "swatch" them to see what they will do. A basic swatch, some color mixing, and then a painting. It would be useful for me to have the pigment information or brand name on your new colors. ❤

To me the idea of ​​a terrible colour is completely absurd, there are certain watercolour colours that I haven't found a use for yet, but I don't have to have a use for every colour. For one project a colour is absolutely right for me and for another project it is absolutely wrong. I also always find it interesting to find out how others have structured their palettes and how they use the colours. I just don't like it when someone presents their selection as the absolutely right one and gives me the impression that other combinations are rejected on principle, because it's something different.

Sandy I'm new to your channel! What is that brush you are using with the sea painting that has the long tip and fat base? Thanks so much! Just beautiful color choices!

Did I miss how you “found” the new colors? Did you use a dot card?

When you talk about removing a color from your color pallet, what happens to that dried paint. Do you throw it out or keep it for later?

How would you advise me to create a really novice watercolor color palette? I don’t want to buy tubes and tubes of paint if they don’t work out, especially since they can be really pricey, are there base colors/brands you recommend?

What is “bursting “? I’ve never heard of verditer blue. Were you working with the large DS dot card?

Interesting, I have never actually sought to limit my palette, because I know I can pull different colors out of the drawer at anytime as needed anyway. I do notice, however, that I do tend to select certain colors more often than others. I know which palettes have them and I will almost aways pull those pallets out for use. I figure we all have our method to our madness or is it madness to our method? I forget how the expression goes. I think do what ever works best for you. Interesting color selection and surprised that you don't like granulation. I like it very much. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

Absolute beginner here. What do you recommend as a cost effective, fun and all around good palette for someone who is just learning?

Indian Yellow + Verditer + Permanent Red Deep; Cascade Green + Transparent Red Oxide + Duo Cabo

Watching now! I’m confused -- are the Instagram reminders just that…. Reminders?

Did you say what brand of paint these are? Or just random?

Firstly how stu$$d to say a colour choice is terrible? They are colours !! They all tell a different story. Each persons palette tells their personal story. There is no terrible or bad.🤦🏽‍♀️ Sandy could you do a video of actually removing existing paint out of a palette? . I had a crazy ,insane, and tough time trying to remove well nested paints out. Even pre soaking them for hours and using a oalette knife. I tried to freeze them overnight, like I had read in a comments section. Even tried searching the Tubes for such a video but could not find one. Even the Daniel smith ones were hard and gummy to remove. (MGraham was easy) 🙏🏽❤️

Love the pallet, but how ridiculous to spend that much unless you are trying to impress someone😳