a really tiny mint tin palette

On our recent trip to Fredericksburg, I purchased a tiny mint tin because it reminded me of a friend and co-worker who portrayed Rosie the Riveter in historic presentations. Teresa's aunt had actually been a riveter during World War II, and much of the material was based on her memories. And now the tin has been turned into a wee paint box. I tested my color choices on this page.

A silicon mini ice cube tray from Amazon was cut up to fit the tin with 9 spaces for tube paint to be squeezed into. While I was at it, I cut another to fit the Texas mint tin I purchased when we were planning to move to Texas. Formerly it held 6 half-pans of paint; now it can hold 12 colors plus a bit of a natural sponge.

The bare minimum of tools to take along with me . . . one of these tiny tins, a fountain pen, a waterbrush, and my journal.

Current Tools - and New Travel Palette

I've been using a new palette lately and now like it enough to show and tell a bit about it :)


I'm always looking for a way to make my palette lighter, smaller and more flexible plus I enjoy playing with different set-ups of colors. After my Alaska adventure my friend mentioned an interesting artist and avid outdoor sketcher - Maria Coryell-Martin whose work is entwined with Alaska. I looked through her we-site and blog and really liked her palette shown on one of the photos and thought that I should write and ask a few question.


A few days later I realized that it would be very useful to have watercolor pans attached with magnets as I'd like to try changing colors and their position in my watercolor kit. I googled magnetic watercolor pans and... I was back at Maria's web-site!

Impatient me probably was looking at pictures, reading every other line in the best case - but now I noticed that she is selling these palettes :)

Below are some photos of my new set-up in action. In short - it's working great for me!



What I like most?
First - it's tiny! (photo above compares size of this credit card holder with my trusty Cotman Sketcher's Pocket Box.

Second - it clips very nicely to my sketchbook (this is 8.5 x 11 Alpha series Stillman&Birn - love them!). The cover of the kit and kit itself are so thin that I can close a book if I need to move or rush somewhere and have no time to pack.


Third - I can move my colors and add/exchange on the go. I like that pans are rather shallow so I can add fresh colors often.


Last but not least - pans are large enough for my flat brush to get in. I am showing flat Niji waterbrush on the photo below because many of you are familiar with it's size but I've been using my 1" with this kit happily!


And palette came with a nice little towel - which soaks up incredible amounts of water.

Connecting the Dots

This is a short version of a post on my blog, but I thought it would follow on Kate's travel box post quite well.

A comment on my Sheer Heaven palette post mentioned Daniel Smith Paint Dots. As coincidence would have it, I had just purchased some - and it is a great idea, but I wanted bigger dots, so I made my own dot sheet with Daniel Smith paints on Sheer Heaven. It works great.

Since you can make your sheets any size, they fit very nicely into any tin or box - just double stick tape the sheet to the bottom of the box!

See the whole post here:

http://www.wisdomwoman.com/whatever/