Van Gogh Mixing Palette

Van Gogh portable watercolor kit.

While I’m on the subject of swag that I received from the Barcelona symposium, I want to
mention another item I started using recently: the mixing tray that came with a portable Van Gogh watercolor set. The kit’s not bad as far as portability goes, but it’s still not nearly as small as my Trader Joe’s mint tin kit, so I figured I wouldn’t use it. As I examined the lid, I saw that the mixing tray could be removed without damaging the kit, so I pried it off.

 

The Van Gogh kit mixing tray is the same width as the Koi kit mixing tray that I was using most recently and about a half-inch longer. (To see the complete series of mixing trays, see the blog post “Coming Full Circle.”) I miss the larger mixing areas that the Koi tray has, but the Koi’s very shallow wells can be a problem (I’ve had several mishaps when the tray attached to my sketchbook wasn’t level, and the colors mixed together into a muddy mess). The Van Gogh tray has mixing wells that are slightly deeper, so getting the colors unintentionally mixed is no longer a problem.

Van Gogh mixing tray attached to mint tin.

 

I usually use a waterbrush, but occasionally I need to use a traditional paint brush. The Van Gogh wells are deep enough that I’ve been able to fill one with clean water and completely saturate a brush. So in a pinch, the wells can be used as water containers. It’s slightly heavier than the Koi tray, but the difference is negligible. I’ve been using the Van Gogh tray the past month with no functional issues.

 

As far as the paints go, I heard several symposium participants say that they seem to be of good quality, so I might try popping out the half pans at some point and putting them into my mint tin.