The palette step pros never skip

___________________________

GET STARTED

___________________________

PLACES TO FIND ME

___________________________

ABOUT ME

Hi! My name is Margot and I am a professional artist and graphic designer. My parents like to joke that I was born with a paintbrush in hand. I started my career after graduating from the renown Parsons School of Design in New York City and spent over 15 years creating and designing for many of the world's top Fortune 500 brands and companies. My painting journey started as a side project and a creative outlet for me to step away from the computer, go back to my "roots" in fine art and to hone my skills as an illustrator and painter. I started posting some of my work on instagram and the rest is history. My work is inspired by all the things that I am passionate about. Ballet, travel, graphic design, color and finding a world of beauty in all facets of everyday life. I hope you'll join me in this YouTube journey as I take you through all the tips, tricks and trade secrets I've gathered throughout the years. I hope I can teach you some of what I know, help you discover your creative voice and I hope you enjoy this Channel!

___________________________

*Disclaimer: Pointebrush is a participant in the Amazon, Blick Art Materials and Jackson's Art affiliate programs. An affiliate advertising program is designed to provide a means for creators to earn fees by linking to products they recommend on these websites. The cost to you for these products is the same, but Pointebrush earns a small commission which helps support the creation of these videos and content.

#

[donnap.]

hi Margot,
Two other options for getting a new plastic pallet ready are toothpaste or baking soda. I scrub either in with an old toothbrush, then rinse well. Fast and easy. For keeping the paint from cementing the cap on, with every new tube of paint, WC, Acrylic, Oil, any screw top, I put a thin layer of petroleum jelly around the base, and screw the cap on and off a couple of times, wipe excess, and replace cap. This works for a long time before you need to apply. Love your videos.

[eirenmist]

While watching her spread the paint around with the tube screw threads, I felt there was a more efficient way to do this. So much paint wasted and such a potential mess to clean up around the top before being able to put the cap back on. A wooden toothpick works great, but I've opened out one end of a metal paper clip, which retains very little paint on it while stirring and is so easy to clean off with a paper towel before going on to the next color. In fact I keep this same opened out paper clip as part of my painting gear, for all the times I might need to stir the paint easily and cleanly. You can also use it to reach into paint tubes where the paint has gotten a little dry at the opening and stir it up a bit so that it comes out more easily. Also, if necessary, you can use it to stir the excess gum arabic back into the tube, mixing it back in with the paint.

[Katbee]

Whew I am glad you finally said there are cool blues and warm blues! And every other color… so the separation isn’t really a true separation because you have cool and warm colors next to each other on each side

[peggybrownelliott]

GREAT HAIR!! Seriously, it looks terrific. You always have some great tips on how to do things and they are appreciated. Love and miss you too.

[MrsBarnabas]

Marot, please, _please, _ don't get rid of the binder!! The result (for a lot of colours) is that the paint, having less binder, goes very hard on the palette and doesn't flow as well on paper. After all, the manufacturers have spent years researching the corrrect binder:paint ration, and what comes out of a separated paint tube is a lot, in volume terms, and is obviously going to alter the flow of the paint.

It's wiser to use a long metal spike of some kind (eg a craft paper piercing tool or metal toothpick - a wooden one wastes more paint) and mix it in _before_ pouring. It takes time, but is worth the effort. Any residual paint on the tool. wiped off onto a brush, can be used to make happy patterns on a piece of paper, which helps to make the effort fun. 😊

[clikchicdesigns]

I usually use a wood skewer or a little plastic dip stick from a kids Nutella dipping snack pack. The Nutella dip stick is fabulous for smoothing in particular but the skewer works great too. If I used my tube I’d likely get way too much paint on the tube screw threads and have to waste too much paint cleaning it off. With the Nutella dip stick you can wipe of the paint on the edge of the paint well so you don’t waste too much,

[susankelly]

LOVE your new haircut Margot. Thanks for the tips on putting these paints on the palettes. Love the glue tip to stop paints beading on the surface. The beading used to really irritate me and I used to end up putting paints straight from.the tube onto a paper plate to stop that but now I'm a lot wiser thanks to you. I'm able to get more out of my paints by putting them on the pre glued palette the right way and putting them in the fridge to dry. Thank you. Looking forward to the next video. Susan xxx ❤❤❤

[Flora-vu]

Welcome back, Margot, it’s good to see you. 😊

[mjpete]

Hullo Margot, Thanks for this lovely video. I have used just about ever method for filling wells. I have discovered that If I put a bead across the back of the well, then bringing a bead of paint down one side smearing them together with a thin film of paint between them. Rather like a capital "L" switching sides as I fill well down the sides of the well. I use a palette knife to do this and not my tubes, I use the paint left on the knife to make my swatches. I get that area in the well for a lighter concentration of color when I do not want to gush the color out into the main mixing area. I have found a larger well to be better for brushes and those half pans used for most travel palettes not so good. Better to use full pans in travel palettes and fewer colors to prolong the life of my good travel brushes, which most times cost more than very good studio brushes! This is when I get to choose my pan size and not when I buy a set with half pans. OH! I use tooth paste as my cleaning agent, I never thought to use school glue, I sometimes use a green scrubber to clean off mixing areas. I find those more commonly about the house than the Mr. Clean pads. I find the tooth paste gets most everything off of the surface of the plastic palettes, but the scrubber does give a courser tooth to the mixing areas.

[artbylynnnorris]

Oh my! I'm a pro and skip this all the time, ill let you all into my secret save you a few hours, run it through the DISHWASHER, Voila beading gone!! If a tube gets stuck get a cup of hot water soak the stuck cap in it a few seconds and it comes loose. Love your fun video style though Margot. Mines dull in comparison.

[lilygrace]

I love that you go into so much detail explaining why we do things! It helps so much. And the comments always have good tips too!

[donnaeturner]

I used an emery board to remove the finish. Works great!

[madamebutterfly]

Mindblown! A simple hack to flatten the watercolour in the well first, rather than leaving it as a rounded glob - wish I learnt this earlier! Thank you for this tip!

[CPAndy-xx]

I have the DS Essentials and I put them in my palette by warm/cool also, but according to the label: warm red, warm yellow and warm blue on one side, the cool primaries on the other. I added raw and burnt siena and Payne's gray, but in other wells at the bottom.

[Artanddahlias]

So great to see you back. I enjoy your voice much more without background music, my particular brain finds it very distracting. Would you consider going back to no music, it distracts from your lessons, or at least make the music much quieter? You are a great teacher and so entertaining. Your editing skills are wonderful as well. Thanks for considering.

[rokonsha]

YOU ARE SO ADORABLE 😊 you have been my teacher for sooo long! I appreciate everything you have taught me! ❤

[kishasworld]

Unbelievably helpful. I am a self taught artist.I was wondering why it kept doing that so I just will go back to my old pallets that I never wash off

[patlizgailer]

Love your haircut. You're looking younger than ever.

[Dao_Tui]

I put my yellow in 3x. One to mix with reds and one to mix with blues, but also one to use pure.
I have a similar palette. Almost the same apart from 5 slightly larger wells at the bottom of the left side (with the thumb grip). Got some student paints to start and played with many colours to find the ones and the types I liked. I LOVE THE BLUES, so in my first ever palette going from the same order as you started.
Left, top-down: Black, grey, white gouache!, browns, yellow, greens, blues.
Continuing right side from bottom to top: Purples, pinks, reds, oranges, yellow

Then I got professional quality paints (w&n, sennelier and my favourite maimeri blu (italian).
I still keep my 3x yellow rule, but have gone to have Yellow, Red, Blue AND Yellow, Magenta, Cyaan. Just to get better at mixing. Although I do plan to add some colours that I just love a lot and dont' want to mix all the time ^^

[lisad]

As a beginner I’m very grateful for this video. Thank you 🙏🏼