Main Watercolour Palette Tour 2025
Greetings! We’re approaching the end of the year now. A time when all the annual “best of”, “annual check-in”, “how my goals went this year”, and any other year-based topics start popping up everywhere. This year was a time of change and experimenting for me in my art practice. Especially when it came to painting. As a result, there’s been some pretty big changes to my watercolour palette by the end of 2025, and I felt its worth sharing with you all.
A year of experimentation
In the couple years previous to 2025 I had been on quite a low-buy moment in my creative life. I was mainly restocking what I ran out of, with one or two new purchases here and there. It was a time of really looking at what I already had around me. What I loved and used frequently, what had a place for specific circumstances, and what sat untouched collecting dust.
During my winter reflections between 2024-2025, I could feel that energy shifting towards a need to explore by branching out again. I wanted to experiment with my watercolour set up, in terms of how I store them, organise them, and use them. To discover how I could tailor my tools to fit my needs, including things I had noticed about myself during the 2023-2024 years. Such as noticing that I have quite an out of sight out of mind tendency. Leading me to not use supplies unless they were readily in my line of sight. Even if I loved using them. This led me to develop my main palette/expansion palette system back in spring, to see if that would help.
My expansion palette back in spring 2025. The same palette is now my main palette, with a different colour arrangement.
Another thing that came up across the course of my 2025 was experimenting with colour. By branching out of familiar favourites like Quinacridone Rose to try Quinacridone Magenta and Quinacridone Violet. As well as going on a whole journey to try to find a replacement for one of my favourite discontinued colours.
All of these avenues to explore and expand my practice led to large and small discoveries adding up over the year. Shifting and changing how I interact with my painting tools, and furthering my knowledge of colour… and myself. Cheesy, I know. Sometimes the truth is cheesy.
Shedding the old to welcome a new palette era
Long story short, over the course of the year I fell in love with my expansion palette (the Holbein RP-24). The longer I used it, the more I found it fits my current needs, temperament, and preferences well. I started enjoying it more than the fixed slanted well style palette I had been using as a main palette.
Around late summer I decided to take the leap and make that Holbein RP-24 palette my main palette, and buy a second one to make a new expansion palette. That way I could easily move wells from one palette to the other as desired.
I transferred the existing paint from the old main palette to the new one. Some paint was easy to transfer, but others required scooping out with a palette knife. After that, I re-homed the old palette to another artist. Re-homing is a great way to pass supplies on when they don’t fit you anymore, so that they can spark joy with someone else.
Since I was completely rearranging my entire palette system, I had a clean slate to work from. I took some time to reflect on what I would like in my main palette this time around. Especially since I also had more space with the 24 wells. Once I arranged all the colours to my liking, I made a decision that would test my patience. I painted out a full colour mixing chart for the palette. I don’t often do this style of chart, instead preferring gradual-step mixing charts between two pigments. This style is useful and has its place, but I tend to only do it every few years when a BIG change calls for it. The update to my palette was big enough to call for it.
The mixing chart for my main palette as of August 2025. This has remained the same up to writing this post.
My updated main palette has plenty of firm favourites. Indanthrone Blue, PBr7 earth tones, Azo Green, Quinacridone Rose, and so on. Those formed the backbone of the new arrangement.
The rest of the slots were filled with a mixture of colours that are new to me this year or colours that I am testing for particular goals. For example, the two oranges Pyrrole Orange and Transparent Orange are part of my search to find a replacement for one of my favourite discontinued pigments. I ended up loving both of them in tests, and felt that I’d only be able to decide between the two by actually seeing which one I reached for the most in practice. Throughout 2026 I should be able to develop a more informed opinion this way. The PV19s and PR122 are also marked for testing to see which ones I prefer.
Some of the new-to-me pigments were gifts or were re-homed to me by other artists during 2025. The Ultramarine Violet and Cobalt Blue were re-homed to me by Cyane, and the Quinacridone Magenta was gifted to me by Heidi. Other new pigments I picked up for myself such as Perylene Violet. I fell in love with that pigment this year, and can see it joining the firm favourites list already.
After a year full of experimentation, I feel like I’m at a point of slowing down again. Going into 2026 I want to use and explore what I have for now.
How has your 2025 been for watercolours? Did you try any new pigments or set up any new palettes? Let me know! For now, have fun and I’ll speak to you next time.
