Sap Green, Olive Green, Payne’s Gray, Alizarin Crimson. I don't think I could sleep at night without these four colour shades in my life. These are my must have colours in my palette. The majority of my watercolours are Winsor & Newton brand, I personally love the rich and high quality colour pigments they offer, but there are other great brands out there too. It’s a matter of experimenting and finding the ones that best suit your art practice.

I use the professional watercolour range in tubes, and use a folding plastic palette to hold my colours - due to its portability. It has 19 slanted wells that I squeeze a blob of colour in. I make sure to put the blob at the top of the “hill” so I can easily pull down small amounts of pigment into the well when needed. I also label the wells on the side of the palette with the colour that’s in it - just makes life a little easier, especially when you are first learning the different colour pigments. The flat areas of the palette are convenient for quick colour mixes, but I do most of my colour mixing on separate porcelain palettes. If you can, choose porcelain surfaces over plastic for mixing watercolours.

I have a lot more colours than the 19 wells allow, what colours you mostly use will dictate which ones get their own dedicated well. There are some colours that I don’t use as often anymore and they will most likely be replaced with another colour at some point. It takes a lot of experimenting and playing around with the pigments to really get to know the colours and how they interact with each other. So have some fun and get messy!

Love,
Negin x