Review: Pocket Palette: A Compact Watercolour Palette Thinner Than a Wallet

Here's the smallest watercolour palette that I have. It's even thinner than my wallet. And it's certainly more compact than the Bijou box and Winsor & Newton Pocket Box.

This is a metal palette that comes with a nice little cloth pouch. The finishing on the surface is high gloss and you can use it as a mirror if you want to.

There's a piece of magnet on the bottom of the palette. That magnet is what holds the detachable metal palettes. The magnet is very strong and no pans will fall off even if the palette is upside down.

The metal pans are smaller than the typical usually white-coloured plastic half pans. They hold less paint of course so they are not the best choice for painting large paintings. But for sketching on A5 and A4 sizes, the amount of paint they hold is more than adequate.

The pans are sold in rectangle and square sizes. The squarish ones are twice bigger. Each palette can hold up to 14 of those rectangular pans. You can mix and match.

The downside of the palette is the rather small mixing area on the flap. But you can add more mixing area by mixing the colours inside the pans as well. That's quite nifty.

Another downside is, it's not as easy to refill the bottom roll of pans with paints. A portion of the pans are covered with the flap at the bottom. Anyway, if you fill those bottom roll to the brim, you won't be able to access the blocked off paints as well.

On the right is the Bijou box.

That's the Da Vinci Maestro Travel Brush that I normally use. It makes a good combo with portable palettes.

Conclusion

Recommended for watercolour sketchers who likes to pack light.

Availability

You can find the Pocket Palette at expeditionaryart.com and if you're in Singapore, they are sold at Arters.

Video

Check out this video of the Pocket Palette in action.