New Insert for my Craig Young Palette - the Paintbox.

For some time I've felt that the 16 well insert for my Paintbox is not ideal for me. Recently I asked Craig to make me a 24 well insert to replace the current 16 wells. It arrived by post today. 

My well-used Paintbox with new 24 well insert.

I'm not a limited palette person. I like as many options as possible and paint a range of subjects that often require different colours. Not for me the half dozen or even dozen paints of the limited palette. Many will disagree with my approach but plenty will agree and I think in general there is a tendency to have more paints available rather than less.

I've had the above palette for some years now and seeing Charles Reid's paint box at Stow this year prompted me to do something. See the small amounts of paint in each well.  

Charles Reid's Palette at Stow

Charles recommends you squeeze out fresh paint each day you paint. The above is the normal 16 well palette and each well can hold a considerable amount of paint - far more than is needed for my` first try for a finish' Reid approach. I rarely achieve this `first try' thing but that's another matter! The new wells are smaller - obviously - but will still hold a lot of paint and unless you use wide flats or very large rounds are perfectly adequate. I've modified my current insert by sticking in some half pans and count 28 (!) but that can be cut down, and the next task is to carefully consider what paints to make up the palette. The first dozen or so are fairly obvious but it then gets trickier. I do hedge my bets in that I have a secondary small palette with 12 additional paints but I think that will also have to be pruned.

I'm not rushing things as I'm still stuck in the moving house problem but will report further when this is resolved and am settled in my new painting abode.