Palette update 2025

 

Here is a photo of the brand new palette, its from Holbein and holds up to 18 colours plus a few extra here and there. The small size is more manageable on location when there is wind, and it fits into my bike pack or shoulder bag. The thumb hole is useful in warm weather but in the winter my glove wont fit so I just hold the palette kind of like you see in the photo (but with the oven-mitt sized gauntlets on). Since a few years ago, the palette arrangement has stayed mostly the same with a few substitutions here and there. You can see a photo of the old one here, before it cracked, and here, the old one after it cracked:

 

good old palette ... not made for winter painting!

 The paints I am using now (with pigment code and companies), in some cases I have two or more versions that are almost identical. They are all single pigment paints. You can see how crazy the paint names really are and how hard it is to get the right one. Just Daniel Smith company sells over 300 varieties! From top left to bottom right the paints are, 

1. yellow ochre (PY43 Da Vinci)

2. umber (PBr7 Shin Han) 

3. burnt umber (PBr7 Schmincke), or burnt umber (PBr7 M Graham)

4. red ochre (PR101, Daniel Smith, Sennelier, Holbien, Da Vinci)

5. perylene maroon (PR175 Holbein), or deep scarlet (PR175, Daniel Smith) 

6. quinacridone purple (PV55 Schmincke or Daniel Smith)

7. indothrone blue (PB60 Daniel Smith), or royal blue (PB60 Holbien)

8. phthalo green blue shade/viridian hue (PG7 Holbein)

9. perylene green (PBk31 Daniel Smith), or shadow green (PBk31 Holbein)

10. phthalo green blue shade/bamboo green (PG36 Holbein)

11. yellow (PY154 Holbein) ... for mixing greens

12. isoindo yellow, permanent yellow deep (PY110 Daniel Smith)

13. yellow (PY154 Holbein) ... for mixing oranges

14. chromate orange hue (PO62 Schmincke)

15. pyrol orange/winsor red-orange (PO73 Winsor and Newton)

16. pyrol red (PR254 Holbein)

17. Quinacridone magenta (PR122 Schmincke) 

18. phthalo blue sapphire (PB15 Holbein)

19. lamp black (PBk6 Holbein)

 

Notes: 

The yellow ochre is a dijon mustard shade, not leaning orange like other brands.

The umber is a greenish shade, similar to a green umber, like tea with milk. 

The red ochre ran out, I'm using burnt sienna deep with a little blob of pyrol red underneath, I will try to make it brick red by mixing on location. Hope to use up all the excess paint I bought on the pandemic year. 

Holbein is a great product, low price, high quality and many single pigments. 

Winsor and Newton is good quality but over priced. They have the best pyrol orange (PO73), its an expensive pigment but worth it.