A couple slots are doubled up, so roughly three dozen paints in this dirty palette's 34 wells. The physical work of cleaning out wells is a little messy but fairly mindless. Even as I type this, I have paint-dirt under a couple of fingernails from the red family while others sport a green or blue. Hard to tell in this light. I'm past the midpoint on cleaning and refilling, which must mean I'm halfway next to Godliness. But there is an hour or more of cleaning yet to be done. While you savor today's painting, you can be partly entertained by knowing I designed it to empty out a couple paint wells.
Cleaning is easy breezy next to the grueling slog of revising the paint selections. It is like American Paint Idol but without an English smart-ass to entertain you. Who will win? With a half-dozen major manufacturers and a couple hundred pigments, there are easily 1,000 choices that could be evaluated. So I did my research —and made some selections —and gave myself things to investigate further —and mulled and tinkered around with how to lay the paints out on the palette under the new regime. Enough already!
Right now it seems like I will cull about 1/3 of my palette, shift around another 1/3, and double up on a few more wells (plus keep a couple paints handy in tubes or pans), making for a net gain of a dozen pigments in my studio palette. Perhaps now the "triads" and "auxillary" and "tester" and "plein air" palettes can spend more time in the cabinet where they belong.
Upon reflection, it occurs to me that the last time I undertook a palette makeover was during the 2008 election frenzy. I'm not sure which is more hateful... enduring the non-stop political yak or performing the tedious duties of researching pigments and cleaning that dirty palette. But I'm glad both only happen once every four years. My name is David and I approve that thought.
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