How to Set Up a Watercolor Palette
Setting up your palette might seem like the most basic thing, but doing it well makes a real difference in how your painting sessions go. A good palette setup means your colors are easy to access, they don't dry out mid-session, and your mixes stay clean. Here's how to do it properly.
Choosing Your Palette
First, the palette itself. For watercolors, you have a few good options:
- Plastic pan sets: Compact, portable, and great for travel. Most beginner sets come in these. The colors come in hard pans or half-pans that you rehydrate with water.
- Ceramic or porcelain palettes: Better for mixing. The slick surface lets you see colors accurately and rinse easily. Many artists swear by them.
- Wooden palettes: More often used for acrylics and oils, but wooden round palettes work for watercolor mixing too if you prefer something more tactile.
- Disposable or tear-off palettes: Convenient for occasional use but create more waste.
Setting Up Your Color Layout
This is where most beginners just squeeze paint randomly and end up with muddy mixes. A little structure here saves a lot of frustration.
The standard approach is to arrange your colors in a logical sequence around the edges of your palette, leaving the center open for mixing. Most artists arrange colors in one of these ways:
| Arrangement | How It Works | Good For |
|---|---|---|
| Color wheel order | Reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, purples | Intuitive mixing, finding complements |
| Warm/cool split | Warm colors one side, cool colors the other | Painters focused on temperature contrast |
| Light to dark | Light colors at one end, dark at the other | Value-focused painting |
Pick one and stick to it. Over time, your hand will just know where each color lives.
How Much Paint to Put Out
For watercolors, less is usually more. Squeeze or place a small amount of each color (pea-size or smaller) on your palette. You can always add more.
For tube watercolors: squeeze a small amount onto your palette and let it dry. You can then reactivate it with a damp brush, which is how most professional watercolorists work. It prevents waste and lets you build up a palette over time.
For pan colors: just use them as-is. Wet the pans lightly before you start to soften them up for smoother color pickup.
Keeping Colors Clean
The biggest palette problem beginners face is contamination: colors getting into each other and turning everything muddy brown. Here's how to prevent it:
- Rinse your brush thoroughly between colors. Really thoroughly.
- Blot excess water on a cloth or paper towel before picking up a new color.
- Mix colors in a clean area of your palette, not in the spots where your pure colors live.
- If you have mixing wells (the small depressions in a palette), use them for mixes and keep the color spots just for pure color.
Keeping Colors Moist Mid-Session
Watercolors dry quickly on the palette, especially in warm or dry conditions. This is less of a problem than with acrylics (because you can re-wet watercolors), but having paint that's too dry makes it harder to pick up enough pigment.
Keep a small spray bottle of water nearby and mist your palette lightly every 15 to 20 minutes. This takes about two seconds but makes a real difference in paint consistency.
At the End of a Session
With pan watercolors, you can just close the lid and leave your palette as-is. The paint will dry and be ready to use next time.
With tube watercolors on an open palette, you can either let the mixed colors dry (if you'll use similar colors in the next session) or rinse everything clean. Dried puddles of mixed color can actually be useful as reference for future mixes.
The Right Paper Makes a Difference Too
Even a perfectly set up palette won't help if your paper isn't right. See our art papers collection for watercolor-specific options, and read the full watercolor guide for everything from palette to technique: Watercolor Painting: A Complete Beginner's Guide.