1, 2, 3, 4 Can I Have A Little More?

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Make A Peppermint Palette

This is a very flexible DIY to make a Travel Watercolor Palette, you can work with whatever you have in the recycling bin.

  1. Go raid the recycling bin. We are going to upcycle a whole bunch of different things! I ended up with a tin that held mints, a lot of differently-sized bottle caps, & a bottle that held juice. The bottle was clear, & the back of the label was plain white.

Bottlecaps of various sizes are laid out on a table, next to a juice bottle & various shapes cut out of thin plastic.

  1. The lid of the tin was grey & I wanted something white to mix paints on. I had a juice bottle & some round plastic from inside the bottle caps (that ended up falling apart too easily). I cut the oblong shape (see picture in step 1) out of a juice bottle so the white back of the label makes a good place to mix the paint.

  2. Try different numbers & configurations of bottle caps inside the tin. I have black & white tube watercolors now, & I want to add primary colors in the future, so I needed to have 5 caps fit in the tin. 5 Bottle caps are inside a small lidded tin. There 2 two pictures showing different possible layouts of bottle caps. An oblong piece of thin plastic is glued inside the lid of one tin.

  3. Any glue would probably work. Use sandpaper to rough up the bottoms of the caps & the inside of the tin a little, to help the glue hold extra well. I used hot glue. Try not to burn your fingers- the tin will get hot!

  4. Add your paint! This works exactly like filling half pans in a store-bought palette. Here is a lovely video explaining different techniques. 5 Bottle caps are inside a small lidded tin. 2 have paint in them- black & white. An oblong piece of thin plastic is glued inside the lid of the tin.

  5. Dance the Dance of Victory while the paint dries. You just made a travel watercolor palette!

  6. The Last & Most Important Step: Share your creation with me! Send me a picture of your upcycled paint palette on Ko-Fi or Mastodon!

You will need tube watercolors or the ability to make your own paints, which I cannot help you with… yet. 2 Panel Meme: Panel 1: Mr. Turner painted in black gouache happily points to a mostly empty DIY paint palette, saying "And this is where I'd put my watercolor paint!" Panel 2: Angry Mr. Turner glares & shouts "If I had one!" I painted the Mr. Turners in this meme with my new travel palette. I will be upcycling more art supplies in the future, so let me know if there is something you want me to make!

A tin of mint with a hinged lid has blue tape covering the name. Cartoon stickers eye's & a mouth have been added to make an awkward, disconcerted face. This is my paint palette. There is only one like it, because this one is mine.

You Are Now Free to Wander & Paint

The initial idea for this Travel Palette came from The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws. I had to return the book to the library long before I had gathered all the parts I needed, so I don’t really remember how close my version is to the one in his book. The Laws Guide has quite a long waiting list at my library, for good reason. It is excellent, I highly recommend it. (See below for my policy on book reviews)

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