Clever idea, pre-mixing favorites in the pans. I will try this for my backgrounds with birds on greeting cards. Thank you.

Just thought I would share my method of stirring the paint about in the pan. I open up one end of a paper clip and straighten it out to make the stirring stick. Then the other end of the paper clip gives sort of a handle which is much easier to grip than the head of a pin. You can clean the clip tip off and use it over and over again.

🙆‍♀️ Finally, (a year after upload) I find someone else that mixes their own colors beforehand and not from scratch (meaning, mulling gum arabic and pigment together). I've been mixing my own for years and I'm surprised it hasn't caught on yet on KZfaq. You can always mix it from two different half pans while you're painting but I find that when you mix certain colors in a certain ratio so often, it just makes sense to have it at hand and ready to go. I use a piece of glass from an old small picture frame and a metal palette knife to mix the colors up, then swipe the bottom of the knife with your brush to get some of the color to test before you pan it. This way you can be rest assured the entire pan is homogenous and you won't be surprised while oainting with a brush load of just one of the hues. Lol 😅 One of my favorite mixes is Cotman's Cerulean Blue Hue with Sennelier's Burnt Umber. The light shade of PB15 with the dark earthy PBr7 makes a wonderful softly granulating and muted, stony blue-grey-green that works wonderfully for dusky skies, a calm sea, and so much else. Thanks for this video! I think I'm going to try your brown-blue mix and have my own black on hand. 🙏☺️

I make my own colors both from pre existing color tubes and also from scratch. I will mix my colors on a glass slab with a palette knife and a muller if needed. It makes for a smoother consistency and you know for sure that the colors are mixed throughout the whole pan before it goes into the pan with no surprises when you work your way through the pan as time goes on. Meaning-just because it’s more blue on top, doesn’t mean it will be also just as blue on the bottom of the pan by the time you get down there and use up the paint if you’re mixing it in the pan with a pin/toothpick. I also will use the tubes to fill the pan, but instead of waiting forever (days) for them to dry, I will add a tiny drop of gum Arabic to them to keep them from cracking and mix thoroughly, fill up the whole pan as much as it can hold, with a tad bit more mounded on the top in the middle (the colors will sink down in the middle and this technique evens out the whole pan more), and then pop the whole pallet/pan straight into the dehydrator on the lowest setting which is about 95 degrees F for about 8hrs, walk away and be done with the whole process. No refills/layers needed, no cracked pans, no wait days on end to refill and wait just as long for a second or third layer…. and they rewet just the same just fine! In most cases, it will be done a lot sooner than the intended 8hrs-usually about 5-6ish, but that’s just what I set it on just to be safe or when I get busy and don’t want to babysit them. The tubes are made a little differently than the pans are in the factory. They add more watercolor medium to the mix to keep them wetter with is why they crack when you allow them to dry in the pans in larger quantities because there’s so much of it in the mixture. Pans on the other hand, are not made with the same consistency as the tubes even if they’re using the same pigments. They’re a lot dryer and why they’re not cracked when you purchase them and/or after you wet and re wet them several times in the palette. The added gum Arabic in this case acts as agent to keep them from drying all the way out. If you add too much, you’ll know it because your pans will remain slightly tacky and will become slightly glossy on the paper which may/may not be an effect you’re going for, but doesn’t effect the quality of the paints any either way, but remember that a little bit goes a long way and you don’t need much added to the mix-literally only a single drop or two per half pan of paint ratio-just to keep your paints from cracking. Gum Arabic is also good to use as a ‘glue’ for pans that tend to fall out of the palette in traveling so your colors don’t get mixed up. Just add a small dab of the gum Arabic to the back of your color block, pop it back in the pan and set it aside or in the dehydrator for about a half an hour to dry and you’re good to go!

I started out with a pre-filled pans beginning then switched to filling up my own half & full pans of paint from the tubes.. I can fill my half pans full with paint 3 times with each tube of paint compared to the price of the ready made pans. Thanks for sharing this the different ways of filling up the pans. Never realized that there was a huge difference in how they dry. The toothpick & pin 📍trick is pretty neat. Thanks again!

Your idea of filling pans with mixtures is so simple yet so very brilliant and saves so much time ! You kind of premix your custom palette and can paint straight away with all your favorite mixtures, I plan to get started tomorrow and mix all my favorite color Thank you🥇🥇🥇🙏🏻👍🏻

This video is absolutely what I needed! Wonderful tutorial!!!

Be fun to make chromatic black mixes but don’t completely stir it in the pan to get variation. Maybe 😊

I'm still at the beginner stage of watercolor. The first ones I bought were pans but quickly switched to tubes, filling my one pans. Apart from the pros you mentioned: Sometimes it's nice to use paint fresh off the tube. To not waste any paint, I squeeze a tiny bit in the dried pan and leftovers can dry without waste. Never thought of fill a pan with a mix. 🤔 Will try that. Thank you 🙏

I have a dehydrator. I set it on low, pop my whole palette in there when I’m done using it or filling it and it usually dries everything overnight.

Hi Paul! I understand the reasoning behind filling half pans in two or three layers in order to get the most of their capacity, but I personally prefer to half fill them at an angle/slope shape. I half fill the pan then I wait for the paint to become a little bit dried and then I use a painting knife to mold the paint in a slope shape. I do that because it is easier this way to load my brush with the paint without having to dig and spoil this way the point of the brush. I can load paint with the sides of the brush if the paint has a slope shape into the pan and it is also very useful when I prewet the paints ( spray them ) with water. Then the dissolved paint runs downwards and I can load the brush from the other side of the pan. I don't know if you can visualize how it looks like. It is a bit hard to describe it. lol

I just started filling my own pans. Thank you for this detailed explanation.

Thank you so much for sharing your method. I particularly appreciate that you've taken us through a few different ways to reach the one that works best for you. The section about mixing is also gold, as I've not seen many videos that cover filling pans with a custom mix. I have just recently bought my first watercolour tubes and I'm really excited to try filling my own pans! This is now going to be my go-to video for this (and I've watched quite a few!). Thanks again!

Wow, thank you for going over this. It's a good thing to know how to do correctly. Also, i love the custom color you created! That is a beautiful green.

Always looking for the best... and the most favourable for my wallet! Your tips and tricks are so honest.. so welcome!!

Very good, I've just started, and I like the idea of remixing two different colours to get the colours you want

I loved the DIY,me a beginner to watercolor is considering to fill my own pans from just getting primary colors(red,blue,yellow)from winsor and newton and try to copy the shades winsor and newton offers as it is more economical. As i said I'm a newbie wanted some councilling on how should I do it and is it practically possible.Thank you

When pouring tubes into half pans or full pans, I use a toothpick to add one drop of glycerin to my harder paints and then mix it into the paint whilst wet, then the toothpick again to push the paint out to the edges and get it all nice and tidy. Easier to re-wet due to the glycerin and looks nice too :)

I fill my pans from tubes thanks for the pin trick! Seems to have stopped the cracking. :)

One reason I like Schmincke watercolors is that their pans are identical to their tubes, so if you have a set of pans, you can easily refill them from the tubes. Because I’m from the US, the difficult part is being able to afford Schmincke paints! My favorite though, is Qor. The paint from the tubes sets up quickly, but rewets really easily.

A revelation! Thank you.

This was very informative. Thank you for the information. Not being very confident with mixing colours, I would be very reluctant to mix paint right in the half pans being that the price of the paint is quite expensive. I buy the tubes now, though I started out buying the half pans not knowing how I would go with watercolours,which very challenging as a beginner. I do fill the half pans myself but watching how you do it makes so much sense. You are very knowledgeable and I know I really appreciate all your tips and tricks about how to get the best results.

Wonderfully informative! I needed this information.

I’m going to try watercolor and gouache mixtures! I definitely fill my own pans, who doesn’t?🤪

I like tubes. I can make different palettes with different color combo. I just bought some tubes from Holbein and Daniel Smith. They are shades I don’t have and can’t mix well. Buying tubes on its own is expensive. Love your idea of pre mixing in the pan. I want Mission Gold’s melon green but $18 is a lot so I may try to create and pan it.

Very interesting!

I started watercoloring with half pans but switched to filling from tubes. And then mixing my own convenient colors in the pan comes quite naturally. Greens and grays mostly. Lately I started to use porcelain palettes which demands using tubes. I found half height empty half pans which I put into a card tin as mini palette. Need to be filled. Tubes are just more versatile.

I like the use a tooth pic to move my paint in the half pan when filling or refilling

I put a little rare-earth magnet in the bottom of the pan, it then attaches to my metal tray and it's easy to move about for cleaning it just to put it somewhere else

I have a couple pan sets but I also have tubes. I like to fill pans (from tubes) so I can take the colors & amounts I want out and about. Only problem now is the biggest makers trying to push the sale of 5mL tubes for the price of 15mL tubes. So, I now fill my on the go pans half way from tubes using your method these days.

Ive heard windsor and newton is hard to reactivate once dried and alot of people suggest a drop of glycerin in the pan, have you tried that before?

I do fill my own half pans but had never thought of creating custom mixes! I recently purchased half pan singles from DS on sale, the pigment pops out, and the pans are difficult to remove from the palette box) new set of six series). I always think of half pans as useful for smaller size brush work in particular. So many teachers recommended working straight from the tube encouraging you to place a lot of paint for a given project in a mixing tray ( don’t be afraid…..) which is so wasteful.

Got idea using a pin for mixing. I was using a small eyeglass metal screwdriver tip and I was wasting more paint.

I used tubes for decades but recently I tried pans which are fun. I like the tin and it's less messy, but I dug out my tubes looking for a specific color and I have been watching videos on what to do with hardened paint in the tube. So I was thinking of filling some half pans with the paint that is fine and make my own palette but my paints are Windsor and Newton and three videos I watched said I have to add glycerin or honey if I want to put it in pans so now I'm not sure what to do. Because I'm not pleased with the tubes that have hardened up.

Do you refill your empty half pans? *Leave me a comment* , I would be interested to know, and for more of my money saving watercolour hacks, check out this playlist next: bit.ly/3qpSgbr

This is fabulous. So much to learn from this. I have a question, where do you actually get the empty half pans? Did you buy them empty or they from an old used up (washed and cleaned out) watercolour set? Really intrigued. Also I did something similar with a drying out set of tube watercolours, cheap ones… I emptied the tubes into a washed waterproof sealable palette, mixed them with fresh distilled water and then used them for a good week however we had lots of rain over many weeks afterwards and the ochre went mouldy. Is there a tip or hack for preventing this outcome as I want to use my existing tube watercolours and not waste them. Paint is expensive and even cheap but good paints are worth using. Thank you for this very interesting video.

When you mix your own colours what do you do about naming them on the bottom?

Do you recommend Winsor & Newton for a beginner? kinda, I want to fill out my first own palette and im wondering which paint is the best for it. Is it still as pigmented after drying it? And does it dry completely or not?

I fill my pallette with tubes, I started out with a cotman pan set and as I've used colours I've made a new pallette with professional tubes in my used colours so it's custom to me and what I use. I never thought about prefixing from the tubes into the pallette to dry, will definitely be doing this with my most used mixes especially grey and my favourite tweaked green

Could I do same process using (cleaned out acrylic pots) as long as filled well at the bottom? Did it w a lemon yellow but not like you did so now looking for a pin! Tyvm!!

Mine wont dry despite leaving them for weeks now in an airtight box with rice and silica gel. Do you think i should try the freezer?

I have just recently filled some pans with Winsor Newton Cotman water color. They are still tacky after 3 days. Am I being impatient?

informative discussion but many views of what you are doing are below the camera lens and not seen.

Why do you put tube paints into the empty pans ? Does this method save wastage of time or paint?