Color palettes: How to Organize your Paint

I had a professor who was always aghast by the way I would arrange the colors on my palette. He tried to convince me that his way was "the right way." I even tried to consciously do his way, but after a couple of days I would forget and just start putting the paint back on my palette however I wanted it to be that day.

There are merits to putting the paint on your palette exactly the same everyday, well I can really only think of one: you will always know where each color is?

Some artists will create the color wheel, some will separate their palette by warm and cool colors, and some are all over the place. In the end, it super doesn't matter. Like at all. No order of paints will make you a better painter, just do what feels natural. 

To prove to all of the naysayers that there is no right way, I present some of the works by photographer Matthias Schaller. Here he has taken photos of the actual painting palettes of famous artists. He has taken over 200 of them! To read and see more, click here or here. 

But here is the question I would like answered, why do these still exist? Did the artist's mom think it pretty and keep it in her cedar chest? Or maybe the palette dried over night and the artist was all, "Hey that looks cool." Either way they are a small window into the temperament and painting style of each artist. 

Marc Chagall /  J.M.W. Turner 

Eugene Delacroix / Georges Seurat

Francis Bacon and his studio

It super makes sense that Bacon would use a canvas as his palette, he probably lost his palette in that mess of his. He was a crazy, crazy dude. 

Vincent Van Gogh / Pierre-Auguste Renoir 

For more about painting check out my main Tips and Techniques page.