I've seen a lot of videos where the artist shows their palette. Artists seem interested in how others organize their colors, how they mix them, and the tools they use. In class we learn the importance of keeping things neat and organized and clean. A palette can be expensive, and require love and care to keep it in good shape.

Me? I've completely given up on the idea of keeping my palettes nice. I've spent plenty of time scraping my fine wooden palettes, or chiseling clumps off my glass palettes. Finally, I've come to accept that fact that I will paint until bedtime and leave my paints to get crusty. I don't bother trying to mix up enough of a color so I'll have it to use later. In fact, I've given up on palettes altogether. Now I buy disposable sheets of wax paper and just toss them when they're old. I make them last a month or so, which doesn't seem too wasteful.

This morning I ran out of room, and had trouble knowing where my new color was mixed, so I scraped off what paint was still usable, folded it up and grabbed a new one!

For those interested in my color choices, I use a simple combination of yellows, reds, blues, and whites, with the occasional use of black, burnt umber, or ochre, depending on the need. I say the colors in plurals, because for yellow I use either cadmium yellow or lemon yellow, cadmium red or alizarin crimson, titanium or cremnitz white- really anything close that I have available. But, with blue, I use an interplay between cerulean and cobalt blues, because I find they are much less interchangeable, rather existing sometimes in tandem and sometimes in contrast.