Watercolor palette collection tour - ALL 18 of my professional sets

Showing all my professional and semi-pro student grade watercolor palettes.
Disclaimer: I love them all and any one of them would have been plenty. Most of these are holiday and birthday gifts I’ve been collecting for many years. If you’re just starting out, get one decent set and stick with it for a while.
The brands featured: Holbein, ShinHan, QOR, A.Gallo, Sennelier, Prima Marketing/ Art Philosophy, LUKAS, White Nights, Schmincke, Caran D’Ache pan gouache, Winsor & Newton, Kremer pigments, Daniel Smith, Roman Szmal

[@JacquelineJax]

I’m actually almost at the end of my paint buying days because I can’t find any other paint that inspire me other than the ones I have so now I’m categorizing and organizing

[@ElaTell]

I think I’m getting there, sadly. Not sure there’s any paint brand I still want to try, other than maybe DaVinci if/when they have a sale

[@drbettyschueler3235]

I love collecting sets of paints and unique palettes. I make a lot of my palettes as I often can't find a commercial palette that aligns with the number of paints in a set. I also like to use pans as I can move them from smaller to larger palettes as my sets of paints grow. Most of my sets are in transparent plastic boxes so I can see at a glance what colors I have available in the set but I also have larger palettes like the Triple Decker from Mijello.

[@ElaTell]

That sounds like an amazing collection! I love rearranging my watercolors in new pallets too. How do you make your own? Or did you mean you use appropriately sized plastic boxes?

[@sylviaclark5376]

Love all your palettes!! I got quite a few myself. I enjoy seeing other people's collection. Thanks for sharing.😁

[@ElaTell]

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I love seeing others’ collections too!

[@marmyyetter5674]

You have a lot of paints! Enjoyed your video!

[@ElaTell]

Thank you for watching!! I love my collection. Watercolors are great that way, that they’re useful but you can also collect them and have them forever (unlike other paint that dries out or gets used up quickly)

[@vilvile]

Great video and wonderful collection. I would say, approach Kremer paints with caution. The palette I bought ended up being extremely gummy paints, they dried with terrible textures. And they are expensive!

[@ElaTell]

Thank you! And good to know! I got my set for a great price and they work very well but I probably won’t be buying any more unless I visit the store in person and can get a good deal on them

[@Dani-eo8gl]

That skinny plastic palette is such a good idea!!! One of my favorite paints is Roman Szmal Cobalt Turquoise. It is unlike any other color I have or seen! It makes great mixes too.

[@ElaTell]

Oh nice, I can’t wait to explore more with that!

[@E4Alabbasy]

I love the palettes that you made them yourself! So tiny and practical 🥰 And I love the shinhan palette I might try this kind of palettes with circular pans because they look much easier to use with a large brush. Thank you for showing ua your palettes 🥰

[@ElaTell]

Thank you! I love making up little travel palettes, it’s so fun! And yeah, the circular wells are pretty large. It’s like $6 at Michael’s and you can use a coupon, if you have one nearby so it’s pretty economical

[@ArteSana3]

What a great group of palette brands!!! thanks for sharing.🤩

[@ElaTell]

Thank you! It’s really fun getting to try them all out.

[@phillipstroll7385]

Agates your favorite brand so far

[@ElaTell]

Did you mean which one? It’d be hard to pick since I like them all for various reasons but I’d have to say I’m partial to W&N, Daniel Smith, and I’ve been loving Roman Szmal too - plus they’re a good deal

[@JacquelineJax]

I love my agallo.

[@ElaTell]

I love them! Not sure what it is about them, but they’re really nice to paint with

[@BluE-jw9hu]

Would you mind linking to the metal card case as well as the eyeshadow pans that you used to make your slim palette? It's such a good idea that I'd love to try making one too 😊

[@ElaTell]

Thank you! And unfortunately neither listing is available any longer. The metal card case was just a plain aluminum business card holder from Amazon. The metal pans I got from Ali express. Sorry! I did go in some time ago to repurchase them and saw that neither was for sale any more

[@phillipstroll7385]

Contact w&n. Their tube paints are formulated differently from their pan paints. If you bought that paint as a pan paint contract them and tell them. They'll gladly replace it.

[@ElaTell]

Thanks for the tip! I wish I’d thought of that before. It’s been many years since I purchased it so probably too late for that?

[@virtuallycolleen]

Great video and lovely palettes. How do you physically store them? Flat in drawers? Stacked on a shelf? Vertical in a box?

[@ElaTell]

Thank you! They’re mainly in one of those wheeled carts. One shelf/bin is for all the watercolor palettes. But I took a few downstairs and those are in a bin, just stacked up. It’s pretty easy to find the ones I want

[@Lu-ys9cw]

Use little magnets 6x3mm on the sides to keep metal insert from shifting.

[@ElaTell]

Good idea!

[@Lu-ys9cw]

@@ElaTell it works wonderfully. You may share if you choose to 😁. I also started putting in the little magnets in the pans before I fill the pan with watercolor. I did see another KZbin channel share that idea.

[@katsmith8263]

I have the white nights because it's widely available here

[@ElaTell]

It used to be here too but it’s really gone up in price since when I bought it. I’m Glad I got it when I did

[@verot8444]

Interesting, color that won't activate is Prussian blue. I had the same problem with aquafine, I guess it is the pigment.

[@ElaTell]

Oh thank you for sharing! That’s interesting to know, makes a lot of sense

[@hoshipan_]

Ohhh wait I have the same issue with my Van Gogh 24 colour set... I thought mine could be just defective (or the pigment behaviour, but its my first set ever so I couldn't really tell). The prussian blue pan even stands out from the others when dry, bc its pretty flat, while the other pans have this soft wet look and are way more creamy(?) In comparison. Oh yeah, also its almost kinda grainy which is also weird.

[@ElaTell]

Thanks for letting me know! It sounds like it’s definitely that specific pigment. It’s so weird. W&N is so excellent that’s it’s weird to have that one pan that just won’t work at all

[@dees3179]

Personally I’ve never had trouble with the Prussian blue, but other known bricking tendency pigments are those used for: Davys grey, viridian, green earth, raw umber, potters pink and opera rose. There are others too, but there’s a list to get you started.They can all take longer to activate, or ultimately just be a bad batch. I buy a lot of paints second hand (don’t even ask) and it gives me a good overview of which ones on average seem to work reliably. These have a decent failure rate and chemically would be expected to. Although having said that, I currently have a little brown one that is so far gone I can’t even tell what colour it should be 😱 It is of course possible to have no difficulty at all with a pan of these pigments, and indeed, I have examples both new and second hand success and failure. They just seem a bit more unstable as pigments. Some brands allegedly use a different mix between pans and tubes and this creates more of a behavioural difference, WN is said to be one of these. So for problem pigments where you haven’t been able to get a pan that was better then using directly from a tube can be the solution. Of course, setting your own tube from a pan can be blamed for causing the issue in this specific situation, but when you are using non standard pan cases you have no choice. But that may mean you need to look to a brand who apparently uses the same formula for both tube and pan for those pigments, I believe Schmincke advertises this for example. A bit of experimenting required and a good reason second hand paint is useful.

[@R_H21]

What sort of things do you paint with that bright opera rose??

[@ElaTell]

I try not to use it a lot because it’s fugitive. If it wasn’t, it has a million uses. Diluted, it works just fine for lips etc, it’s absolutely gorgeous for flowers, and you can mix it with other colors just to brighten them.

[@R_H21]

@@ElaTell I will have to give it a try! I have Shinhan tucked deep in my cabinet but now I want to dig it out and try that color.

[@ElaTell]

@@R_H21 I really love it, could use it on every painting if I didn’t care about it not fading away lol

[@kyleequest]

It works great in art journals.

[@johnk3137]

Opera roses.

[@moniqueme1600]

Love your video. Lukas watercolors are far from student quality though.

[@ElaTell]

You’re absolutely right! I don’t think they’re classified as student paint at all. It might be the ones that I selected just weren’t great colors. I think the ones I picked were all more in the opaque side which also made them more dull. And the quality I think isn’t “quite” as good as top of the line paint. So the combo of quality plus the colors I picked resulted in me not being thrilled with the 4 I had. But they were good enough that I did want to use them and I had space in my Prima palette so that’s where they went

[@diannedupuis2960]

What’s your instagram account?

[@ElaTell]

@ela_tell 😊