Part of the preparation for the Group Run-through of my SketchingNow Watercolour course (see more here) is to sketch your palette.

My palette hasn’t conceptually changed for a number of years but from time to time I tweak it, exploring alternatives within the general categories of colours.

This trip my palette has been continually changing as I’ve been testing some new Aquarius watercolour paints by Roman Szmal from Poland. I’ve met up with Roman twice on this trip and so I have a little collection of new paints to try.

I also handpicked 5 colours for the Palladian Odyssey tours. Three of these are in my palette again as I loved using them so much – Venetian Yellow Earth, Italian Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine. More about Aquarius paint here.

I have hesitated a little to share this palette as I know that some of you go nuts about new colours… so please note this is a testing palette and none of these changes are locked in. It takes time to get to know any new colour and so these colours will be in my palette for a few weeks at the very least.

My advice to you is to spend time getting to know the paints that you already have in your palette. If you are someone who is constantly buying new colours, I suggest that you freeze for your selection for 3 months so that you work out how you need to tweak it – rather than just blindly buying new colours that other people use. It will be tough going but super helpful. BTW a big part of the SketchingNow Watercolour course is dedicated to helping you work this out!

In terms of the Aquarius watercolours… I am very impressed. They are not easy to find at the moment but are available at artemiranda.es who will ship internationally. I’ll definitely share more about these new paints down the track – and particularly if there are more ways you can buy them.