Stephen Quiller has a method to layout this palette with specific colors that he uses in his paintings and that work well for making mixes. Here is the current layout of my Watercolor Palette as of January 2022: Over time my plastic palettes do crack and I will replace them periodically. The other difference is the porcelain palette has a few less paint wells than the plastic palette. They also have a porcelain palette, but it is heavier and more expensive. With these 7 colors you can make a huge variety of mixes including secondaries, grays, browns, and blacks. This 7 color palette would be - Ultramarine Blue (cool) & Phthalo Blue (warm), Quinacridone Rose (cool) & Pyrrol Scarlet (warm), Hansa Yellow Light (cool) & New Gamboge (warm), and Burnt Sienna. If you want to expand a little more, I would suggest a 7 color limited palette that has a ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ version in each color family, plus brown. A suggestion for a 4 color limited palette might be - Cobalt, Quinacridone Rose, and Hansa Yellow Light (or Lemon Yellow), and Burnt Sienna. If you are just starting out, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to start with a limited palette and really learn what those colors can do and how they mix together.

Just because I have all of these colors on my palette now, does not mean that I started watercolor using this many pigments. At some point it is a good idea to limit the colors you are working with and really investigate the mixes and techniques that you can do with those colors. You may try their suggestions and find a new color that you really like or you may spend a lot of money going from one set of colors to the next. Any time a teacher suggests or requires colors for a painting or class, it is a good idea to decide if you really need to add them to your palette. However, they may not be the colors that you or many other watercolorists would want on their palettes. This palette of colors works well for the kind of paintings that I like to do. So, I thought I would do a post showing my palette layout and the watercolors I currently have on my palette. I have questions about the colors that are on my watercolor palette every now and then.

Split primary color wheel