How to pick a travel palette - plein air, urban sketching & watercolour palettes review - art haul

A video all about how to pick a travel watercolour palette and highlighting a few of the main ones to consider! For all plein air, urban sketching & travel art lovers :) creating art during a holiday is super fun!

I’m happy to answer additional questions x

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[MirandaWatsonArt]

I never get tired of looking at and thinking about watercolor palettes. 🎨 Such a fun video and definitely makes me look forward to my next trip this week and choosing which palette to bring!

[sallyreff]

Great reviews.
I always spray my metal palette with white Rust-Oleum to prevent rusting.
This works great & doesn't affect the mixing area.

[moma-b]

17:21 Many think the Van Gogh palette is wasting space but actually there is a logical reason for leaving that big gap between the pans. When you use a big brush you can safely pick up a color from one pan without polluting the color with another one.

[colleenmcchesney]

Wow they’re definitely quite a lot of great flexibility of choices for a travel palette! I love the uniqueness of the 40 colors plastic palette & the luxury brass palette. This is definitely a wonderful informational video for beginners to figure out which option of traveling palette 🎨 they might want to use or try.

[jenniferdoyleart]

Loved the video Sketches love seeing what people use for plein air. I have so many different palettes and love everyone.

[mzebony]

The portable painter looks very sufficient and effective, so that would be my favourite. Thank you for sharing this! Keep creating 💛💜💙

[FaithAnnNB]

I have so many of the same palettes… I ❤❤❤ travel palettes (reviews and using them). I tend to use that type of palette for painting at home as well as on the go. The portable painter palettes are awesome, they might be my fave. I haven’t filled my brass palette yet, so can’t comment on using that one, but it’s my favourite “luxury” item. In addition to the ones you shared, I really love using my art toolkit palettes. They are just so tiny to slip into a bag and I love using the folio size at home. I do prefer extra mixing space though and you need a spot for your own water, so those are the drawbacks.

[anitaanderson]

You presented a great selection of types of travel palettes. I have the Roman Szmal Urban set and really like it. I too added some extra paints to my set. I also have some small Meeden palettes to create my own selection of colours. One thing that I will do is look at what colours various expensive palettes use (e.g. A Gallo mini palettes, etc.) and then use other brands such as Roman Szmal in the same colours to create a copy of the mini palettes. It just saves a lot of money. Thanks for the video and have a great week.

[melissafisk]

I use a small metal box palette but I love how cute and functional the micro portable painter looks. Very informative video!

[nostalgentsia]

Your content is so good on all the levels. Extra excellent that your voice is so nice to listen to as well. Like… asmr tier. 💫 I’ve always wanted the opulent Frazer Price Palette, but my micro portable painter was much kinder to my wallet and is fantastically functional.

[weekend_art]

Almost all of my favorites you have, especially Portable painter - I just used it today! There are two others that I really love: Art toolkit’s pocket and narrow Schmincke metal palette. I also like QOR’s mini for its mixing wells. I just recently did my first video showing them all and I plan to talk about each one by one when I figure out how to make better sound 😅

[samriddhipatil]

Feast to eyes to keep seeing your videos and very informative

[rociocruz]

THANK YOU, I wouldn’t know which one is my favorite, maybe I, d go for the brass one!❤

[suzisandpiper]

Ooh just stopped for a break and you've uploaded! I love your videos ❤...
About rust, I've got loads of metal palettes, my oldest I've had 35 years! Not a hint of rust...you just need to open the palette when you get home and let it dry out before closing it up. It's shutting them wet and leaving them that way that usually causes the rust problems. Mind you my older palettes probably were better made as well, so well see with time if the more modern ones are more prone to it.

[CHARUL]

Wow so much choices. Thank you for the video. I started with Van Gogh and W&N pallete but I have used them only at home not travelled yet due to health reasons. Since your recommendations on Roman Szmal colours I went ahead and bought few colours and have fallen in love with them. Definitely would have to get one of these pallettes wherever I travel to take thos colours with me and next time when there is sale of Roman Szmal I have made notes to get more colours. Watching videos have really inspired me to paint with watercolours. Thank you

[CeruleanCzarina]

The Winsor and Newton Sketcher’s Pocket Box is a classic and, hands down, my favorite. Though it only carries 12 colors, it feels so good in the hand and I actually enjoy using the 3 mixing wells even though they are plastic.

[Julie-vyoz]

I bought a cheap set f paints in a plastic palette from a big box store, gave the paints in it to a friend to use with her child, and filled it with a select warm/cool colors. It’s light, has a mixing area and clips nicely on my small clipboard. Works great but definitely lacks the “oooo and ahhhh” factor of some of these. The brass palettes are just so lovely!

[catherinebrown]

Roman Szmal is the best. I just love this combo of colors.

[derwood]

nice overview! Love the metal tins (YAY RS Urban Sketchers palette) and the portable painters palette! I've tried the portable palette micro but choosing only 6 colors is frustrating so the option to get those split pans to increase to 8 colors in the micro would make it perfect!

[positronixartandlife]

I have the micro portable painter, which oddly is a bit fiddly for me to really want to use :D I found that I'd either want something really slimline to easily put into a pocket or one I could put together and then upack onto a desk but the vast majority of palettes don't fit these requirements (though I have recently found ones which are perfect for me). I had been eyeing up the Frazer Price brass palette but, again, it's neither slimline nor one I can really unpack for use on a desk. The Etchr one and Studio of MM palettes are almost perfect, I just want an option to move half pans around (as while I do buy tubes, I much prefer working in pans at the moment and buying tubes to fill half pans is more economical).

The ones I have found to work for me are on opposite ends of the pricing scale. I had an old metal tin of Daler Rowney Aquafine watercolours (cost: £10) which was the perfect slimline fit I wanted, but only held 10 colours (there's a newer version, plastic with 12 colours, but that's not the one I'm talking about). I realised that I could remove the plastic insert which held the watercolours, mixing area, and travel brush and instead fill up the space with my watercolour pans. It's just tall enough to fit standard half pans in with no issue, has enough space for me to squeeze 30 half pans in, the lid makes a nice large mixing area, and is just a bit smaller than my hand. Having so many pans in close proximity means I do need to be careful when picking up colours, but it's handy enough for small paintings that I don't worry about that. I do also have the larger tin which looks like it could hold 42 half pans but the small one is perfect for now

The other one is the Holbein watercolour box (cost: £275 when not on sale 😨) which is my "unpack and place on the desk" option. Nice shiny plastic box that is a monster for fingerprints, a fancy porcelain mixing tray and travel brush, and two trays of watercolours. All the trays are made out of wood with nice dividers for each row, and the half pans in the set all come with magnets to keep them affixed in the tray (there's a strip of magnetic tape on the bottom of the trays for them). Expensive but the care and quality of the design and construction definitely shows in the price, and I'm eager to try it all out