I like to take the little pans out and place them in Altoids tins etc and take them for outdoor sketch painting.

I love that you don’t push having to use professional grade products as I’m painting for my own enjoyment. It helps me to just have fun and not worry about using expensive products to create pretty things :)

With the amount of free advertising that Windsor Newton gets from you they ought to keep you supplied with paints!

Repositionable glue dots are perfect for keeping pans from moving around. They hold them down firmly, yet can be moved when you want to.

You could use blue tack on the bottom of the pans to stop them moving.

love your videos! I'm new at painting, and you are so well-spoken and a natural at teaching and explaining. Your quote "I don't know what you guys think I make as a stay at home mom, but it's zero dollars" made me laugh so hard; I'm a stay at home mom too and that just hit me as so dang accurate and relatable. Thank you for your awesome videos and for being so real!

Just wanted to drop a line. I am a new subscriber and I love how this channel is all about painting and not about marketing products. Love cotmans too. Keep up the good work for us, Emma! 😊

You can put a bit of blue tack (poster putty) under the pans to help them stay still in the pallet, but still have the option to move them around or add/subtract colors if you choose.

I bought a 48-pan (empty) that move around like that. I filled them with my tube paints and labeled them myself. I really love it and like that I can reposition them.

I started watercolor less than a year ago with this set because 2 artists I follow use it and it seemed the right choice for me, plus I paid only 35 euros for it on Amazon, which is an amazing deal considering the number of colors. Honestly I like it. There are a lot of colors which can feel a bit overwhelming for a beginner but on the other hand, it allows me to try different shades and decide which ones I like most. I finished the indigo pan and refilled it with a Cotman tube. Tip: if you don't want the pans to move around, you only have to put each of them with the little plastic stripe in the middle of the pan, if that makes sense.

Emma, you never need to justify your means or supplies to us. We love Cotman too! I solved that annoying movement issue by hot gluing them into the big palette. But they are tiny.

I have this palette and really like it. There’s little grooves on each row so that if you line up all the colors so they fit flush together and don’t move around.

I have a palette like that from a different company and how I use it is I don’t mix in that attached “lid” area...the benefit is...I can close the lid right away, when I want to, without having to wipe away my pigments. I do mix in the part that pulls away. Mixing can be done on a $3.00 ceramic plate as well, just don’t eat off it again. Tubes are highly economical and you can refill those half pans you’re showing with any tube of paint...or you can buy what they call “open stock” of select colors and unwrap them like a candy and add them to your plastic palette. You can secure many sets by squeezing the part that holds the pans. Or you can apply sticky little magnets, or double sided tape, or those Zot things. I do not notice the rattling around when I’m painting. I like both pans and tube self-poured paints, they each have a purpose. It is also okay to mix different brands of paint into your palette. Example: If you love Daniel Smith Payne’s grey you can have that in your Winsor & Newton Cotman pan set. It will be okay. By the way, a half pan of paint (or a full pan, twice the size) does last a very, very long time. Tubes last longer but you can refill pans with them or as you know restock your tubed palette set as needed. Thanks!!

I'm glad you touched on the limitations of working within a budget. BTW, after seeing you using (and praising) the Princeton Snap! brushes, I bought several at my local art supply store and I'm very happy with them.

Love you simple and practically frugal approach to everything ❤️🧡 Enjoy building your fancy pallet for specials!!

I would take out all the duplicate colors & the ones you know you won’t use. Then move them around so they make more sense to you. Use double sided tape to help them stay better. You may be able to squeeze the metal rails in so they hold better as well. Or as someone said, get a tin box, put magnets on the back of them & make a whole new palette with just the colors you want. I agree, I love tube colors better.

Loctite (sold in hardware department at Walmart) is great to hold the pans in place . Just place a small dot of the blue putty on the bottom of the pan. It is reusable. Both sides of the palette are removable for washing. The top palette clips on and off.

this set is highly recommended by many artist as a way to try out many colors from windsor newton. Im considering purchasing this to play with during quarantine.

I recently picked up this set and you can buy half pans to add to or refill the pallet, that is why there are empty rails. You can also refill the half pans from tubes as you would do for your own pallet. In theory the tubes and half pans are supposed to be exactly the same paint... Not that I've tested that theory yet for myself, but undoubtedly will do so once some of the paint is used up.

Before use, I rolled a little ball of tacky stuff to stabilize the pans and it helped

I decided to buy a smaller pallet of the same water paints to see if it is something I could enjoy doing. After watching your tutorials I decided I would rather try my hand at water colour painting instead of buying so many stamps and di cuts to make cards with. Watercolour painting to me comes more from the heart then what I was doing. I would design my cards but always with a companies already designed stamp sets.

Prewitting pans make it easier to get vibrant colours

I dont use these much, but as far as i know, u can buy separate single pans and put them in ur watercolor box, u dont need too many colors. Edit: u can also take these out of the box move them around to the position u like.

Most stores and outlets in the UK sell Cotman pans. You buy a complete halfpan ot the paint filling alone. All winsor and newton paints, including those in your hand, have printing on them permanently with the codes of what to purchase again. This is an advantage because you don't get that with tubes. Once iouvevsquired your paint into hour palette you have to rely on a labelled swatch to remind you which colour you put where! Your Cotman pans are bound to wobble because you put different rows in different positions! Your yellow row is too far left by 1/2 a half pan width. Look at where the Ultramarine row starts and start your yellows immediately above them. I put a small piece of squeegy kitchen washing up/wiping down sponge in this narrow space. You have one of these 1/2 spaces at each end of the Cotman studio set rows. Also, buy a Cotman sketchers set of twelve pan colours and swap out the colours you want. They are very portable. Any of the pan sets are much more useful for plein air painting whereas that's harder with tubes and some palettes as they are never pocket size and hardly ever seal! You can always put tube paint into pans but honey based paint will never dry! Winsor and newton's Cotman paints don't use honey so you can get a harder drying but worth adding maybe a spot of gum Arabic to keep them moist. Finally. I put a length of double sided paint between the pans and palette to hold the pans in place. I can still pull out pans if I want to. Why not add a rubber / eraser in uour spaces or a sponge? Use the space!

Emma, I noticed that as you put your brush in those little pans it seemed like you didn't have room to swirl and load it. You like using larger brushes for your florals and the little pans won't suit that. It would make me crazy trying to fit a #14 round brush or a flat brush into those tiny pans! Love your videos, keep stretching yourself and we will all stretch along with you. 💕

I have the smaller pan set with about 14 colours or so and when they are empty I'm debating on switching to tubes ;). I'm not that fond of the movement either, the colours and pigment is great tho! ☺️ I just have a hard time finding an empty pallette like you have with the tube paints, for mixing and storing my current colours :)

Thumbnail: me: that's my set!! that's my Set!!!! Thank you Emma!!! 💖

I have both the tubes and that cotman set and I find the same difficulties with the pans. But you can stick the pans down with either sellotape or blue tack, I love your videos, thank you for sharing!

Nothing wrong with Cotman paints! I love your folding pallet with it’s big wells. Thank you for using the same paints and brushes so we don’t have to buy more and more things to learn to paint. That allows us to get better paper. Try a tiny bit of poster putty on the bottom of the half pans. They won’t rattle in the travel pallet. When you pick out a few they can stick on a plate with more putty. I also find the colors too close together, and I’ve slopped the brush into the wrong one. So I’ve folded the foil wrapped around them or gum wrapper and placed that in between some of the the half pans. I also keep the tiny labels , stick them in a binder to look up the pigment numbers and any other information on them later.

I love that the pans have the name on the side. I splurged on a White Nights 36 colors set (artist grade) and I stupidly unwrapped them, without marking ... Never will I be able to say with certainty which colour is which :-( ... Also the moving around is a problem of plastic boxes. Traditional watercolour boxes are metal, where you fix the little pans by bending the rails. I simply used double sided tape to stick down my pans, so now they're not moving.

I have two pan boxes that contains 8 pans and 12 pans. The smallest has pockets for The pans that hold them in place and its easy to take out when refilling a color. The one with 12 pans is a cotman box, The pans sits in place but its not as easy to pull The pan out. I really liked it becasue it was The only small box I found that contained blck, gray, white and purple 🙂 I only shop online and there it is several stores that sells colors separate. I really appriciate this video! I have recently started to paint again and wondered if and how big differens it is between professional colors and cheaper ones. And tubes vs pans. I just found your videos, really like them.

Emma I love your painting tutorials! 💗 Thank you so much for taking all the time to teach us so much! I agree with the other comments! I think you should make a wish list and if anybody has extra paints like myself, we could send them to you. I also think that you should reach out to Windsor and Newton and ask them if they would sponsor you or send you samples? I’m not sure if you have a wish list? But I have a bunch of Cottman tubes that I’ve used not even half of each tube.( I have the complete set of tubes.) I would be more than happy to send them to you. I’ve also bought a few of the professional paints. Out of all the ones I’ve bought, and swatched out, I love Windsor and Newton professional and Schminke. I did buy a bunch of Daniel Smith watercolor paints, I personally don’t think they paint as smooth as Windsor and Newton professional and Schminke. I do love the cotman paints. ❤️ Please let me know if I can help you. Maybe we could message each other? I’m sure there’s other subscribers that would love to help you out too! Liz Cape Cod Mass😊💗👍🏼

You can refill the half pans with tube paints also. They are giving you room to add the. Colors you prefer thats why they move around. Stores like Micheal's don't have the 1/2 pans ir full pans. I havt an art store near me that does sell the 1/2's they also sell the empty 1/2&full pans so you can customize your own set. You can also orderthem all online :)

In my experience, I started out with tubes, WN tubes. I got a half pan set of WN and loved them. But, the half pan refills are almost as expensive as the tubes! I was introduced to GenCraft and I like those, I haven’t seen any refills for them though. Trying to find refills for the WN 1/2 pans, you”ll never find them in Michael’s or any art store. Even Dick Blick stores. I have found them online at Cheap Joe’s art supply, I have even found them on Ebay, a little less expensive there but, still. To me it’s a lot like a student flute vs a professional flute, if you can’t make the student flute sound good, the professional flute is gonna sound the same, just because it’s professional doesn’t mean I’m gonna be a better flute player. I think with professional paints, if the piece is a commissioned piece, you want a quality paint where the colors will last. Professional paints do have more pigment. Basically it’s how one uses them and works with them. And you use them all very well ❤️

I love your work!!!! And I bought an empty 12pan case and chose my favorite colours... And have 2 cases, one nature-like and one ,flower-like... I can replace them as I like and they last over a year allready and the end isn't there.... I use van Gogh...

Thank you for listing the links to what you are using. Certainly makes it easy to purchase and follow your tutorials. I use tubes, but I certainly like the idea of the pan set you showed and the great array of color mixing possibilities. The set up doesn't appear too problematic either, but it certainly is a personal choice. Thanks for sharing.

You can use blue tac or glue dots to secure the pans. Or you can just switch them into a metal palette.

Who cares what you're using to paint with?! 🌸 It looks beautiful! I don't know much about paints themselves, but it's an inspiration to know. we can aspire to creating beautiful things like you do, using "student grade" materials. For myself, so far. I'm a fan of pans, and I think you can buy containers that will hold the ones that you pull out of the case. Also, I think I've seen individual colours for pans online, but I would suspect it's more expensive that way (?) I put pans that I'm not using into the row with the ones that I am and wedge them in there so they don't move around.

I prefer the tubes. I like making my own palette.

Hi! You can glue a magnet to the bottom of the pans and put them in a tin box! 😊❤️

to keep my pans from moving i use double sided tape. Just a thought for you.. I've also used the glue dots and that works great too... Give it a try if you don't like them moving. I like that they match the tube paints.

When I got mine it was full of pans of color. With a couple of spare pans as well. So nothing moved around. So maybe if you fill it with a few empty pans it will be easier to use.

You should never have to justify why you use what you use!! If they work well for you then that should be good enough. I love your work thanks for sharing.

You could put them into the small Windsor & Newton traveler case... it’s really nice because it is small. But my favorite travel box is a professional painter box because it comes with water cups and it is super compact and small. You can use tubes to fill the squares, it cones without paint

Hi Emma, I always love to watch you paint. I thought I would share a tip with you that works for me. I have the White Nights paints and the palette is nearly identical so the pans move around. Drove me bonkers. I ended up purchasing some poster putty. I flatten a small piece and place on the bottom of each pan then press it into the palette. No more wiggle and it can be re positioned.

If you mix on a ceramic dish/pan/plate, they will never bead up on you. You should check on Amazon for ceramic paint palette. It is separate from your paint pan but it is so amazing for mixing on.

Another great video! I prefer tubes too...and a limited pallet. It took a while to learn, but now I really enjoy mixing my own colors.

I find that half pan sets are more convenient then using tubes and messy palettes.

Metal palettes keep the pans tighter.

I have the super teeny pan set of the winsor and newton cotman it has about 14 colors and the pans don’t move Because they have a single space for each pan I love love love my set the only thing I wish it came with was a black or a gray instead of the white.

You can definitely customize your Winsor & Newton Cotman pan set. Just buy an empty palette and buy the pans separately. It just may be a matter of finding a retailer that sells the pans separately. but that is what I have done.

I use a pan set and it has lasted me 2 years so far! I am thinking about trying tubes though.

Thank you for making this video! I am a beginner and have been looking at the smaller version of this pan set. Still haven’t made my mind up yet but you brought up some things I haven’t even considered! :) love love love your tutorials by the way!

You can buy additional pans, you can also buy empty pans in Amazon and fit them into the pallet to stop the others moving round. You can also refill the empty pans with tubes. Love your videos very constructive x

Thanks for sharing the Canadian Amazon site as well. Appreciate it..by the way...Opus sells the paints pans for a refills.❤️🇨🇦❤️

I actually have unit a bit of professional grade watercolors....but even then hard to justify the price for a non-professional artist like me! I use a glue dot on the bottom of the little pans to keep them in place. Have always like Winsor and Newton! My first set! Just bought this set before Christmas..no time to play yet! Agree that the pan set-up s “awkward”.

Good morning Emma... thank you for your review of the Cotman pan paints. They are student grade!. If you ever want to move into a better grade at the same price...try Van Gogh tube paints (or pans). While the company says they are student grade... they claim lightfast for 300 years. I started out with Cotman and began to switch to Van Gogh when I learned that. I never looked back. Colors are better than Cotman and they use real pigments and not hues. Hope this helps.

It may seem a bit awkward, but when you have created “your” palette the half pan can either be replaced or refilled from a tube.

Oooh, I don't like how wiggly the pans are either but, if you could get your hands on some double sided sticker tape or the little sticker dots, I think that would work out quite well for you. Especially because that palette is so big, I would be disappointed to not be able to use it at all. (LOOK AT ALL THAT MIXING SPACE)

you can buy pan color individual and use a metal tin to get then in, its bether then the plastic container and dont move around ^^ but it get on the preference side, i used to like more of tube watercolors, bus now i like to buy the half pans and put the tube colors inside ^^

Thank you for sharing this, Emma!

this is exactly the video i was looking for! im definetly going to order some winsor and newton tubes of the basic colours to try them out as ive only ever used the pans and i love them. thanks !

Van Gogh paintings are great also, greetings from the Netherlands. I love your work and video's.

Thanks for your thoughts on this larger palette. Funny that I just got this set as a gift today. Lol so it was Great to see a video from you about it. You can refill the pans from the tubes. They do sell refills pans on Amazon but I would definitely just refill from the tubes.

You can refill your pans with your tube paint and move the pans where you want them to be in the pallet.

I combined the two, I bought an empty pan set off of Amazon and you can put your tube paints right into them, that way you have all the color you want and organize the pallette your own way :)

If you put a dab of poster tack on the back of each pan they will not wiggle and you can take pans out to use and stick them to the plastic pallet. I find half pans a bit annoying . But I'm not exactly a delicate flower when I paint; or ever. Lol. I never understood the term "starving artist", until I got into painting. Materials can be very expensive. 👍💜

The art store I use sells van goh individual cakes and empty pan boxes that you can customize and the price point and quality are about the same as cottman. I also hate how wiggly the cottman sets are!!

I have this set and don’t use it as much as the tubes I think because it’s trickier to see the difference in colours. I know you can buy the little pans separately though on Amazon.

I am not a big fan of the movement of the trays either, so, I took my glue gun and put a small dot of glue on the bottom of each pan, it releases easily when changing.

you can squeeze the tubes into the pans

Emma, love that you are so normal 😃 question - your set that you use with the tubes - do you just squeeze the tube contents into your pallet? And then just let them dry out and then activate them with water later?

I think you should experiment the Van Gogh from Royal Talens. I don’t know in the USA, but they’re cheaper where I live, besides that I just think they are so much better than the Cotman’s!!!! I never tried the pan set from the Cotman’s. I only have tubes. But, if I already don’t like the tubes, I expect that I won’t like the pan set. But the Van Gogh? The pan set is amazing, the tubes are amazing. And they are cheaper! You can beat better quality and cheaper price. 🥰 Love my Van Gogh🥰 I have professional colors, but I totally agree with you. If you have money to invest. Invest in paper and brushes. I think Cotman is very hard to activate when they’re dry, but I still have them because the store closer to me that sells paints only sell Cotman tubes and Ecolines. So I buy them eventually. But they’re not my favorite.

Hi Emma, I also bought this set. I'm thinking on buying a metal palette and put them there. Love your videos.

I have the same pan set and after organizing the paints the way I like, I put a strip of double stick tape into the grooves that hold the pans. It worked! I did not like the fact that 5 colors were repeated in this set, and one was white, which is seldom used. I do like the 40 colors in the set. I like to clean my palette after a project is done, and this palette is easy to clean. I wrote the company and asked why colors were repeated and was told that there are only 40 colors in the Cotman brand. So why charge people for 5 duplicate pans? I took the duplicates out and inserted empty pans that I can fill myself.

Put double sided tape down and they won’t move around

you can buy refills for the pans, but you can also refill the pans with tube paint, same paint.

You can buy individual pans and tubes online, and you can refill the pans with tube paints of your choice.

Dickblick.com sells half pans of Winsor Newton watercolor. I bought an empty half pan tray/pallet off Amazon and I only buy the colors I want to use. Plus it's a travel pallet so my paint can go with me where ever I go.

You can buy replacement pans at Amazon. Therefore you could buy the 24 set and replace pans with your favourite colours. You could also refill pans from your tubes. I had the same issue with the rattle pans but they stopped rattling after a little use as paint dried around the pans. I am also thinking of using a tiny blob of blu tak under pans that are still rattling. Another thing I might do is put magnets under the pans I use most and move them to a metal tin like the ones by Meeden, Atworth and Heallily which are pretty cheap on amazon (e.g. ATWORTH Empty Watercolour Tins Palette Paint Case Metal Box for Watercolour Paints (Medium Tin) Pink www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07BBLLTQJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_tTYrEbY0BP4JX which has a whole range of sizes and prices, with or without empty pans). Your 20 colour palette could be reproduced in pans even whole pans which your art store should sell in empty sets (or you can use amazon of course). I hope that helps!

I’m thinking of buying tubes... which colours did you start with?

Very helpful! Thank you! 🙂

This video is so timely for me! Thank you! Like you I am a SAHM to my 7m.o. and I got into watercolour painting as a hobby before I got pregnant. My question is, what is the difference in quality between a "professional" set of paints as opposed to "student"? I do sometimes give some of my work as gifts and have thought about selling. I'm currently using a couple of much cheaper pan sets

7:23 yeah you can buy single half pans refill

I have put a spot of glue on each color to hold them in place.

yeah i had the12 1/2 pan set with no purple so i went to blick to get the pans i wanted but no they dont sell them in store so i was gonna get the 45 pan set butthey didnt sell that in store either so i got the 24 pan set for 2 colors so now i got to go online to get them

That was a really helpful review. Thank you 💕

I totally get why you use student grade paints! Don't worry about what others say! Do you & take care of that precious family of yours! ☺ Question: can you get 1/2 pans to fill the spaces in the palette (and add your own colours)? Even if you got empty ones... That should help keep things from moving around so much... I get Grumbacher Academy tubes for my drills & practices, so I don't know... I don't know where you are in Canada, but have you checked out either endeavoursthinkplay.com (a small independent art shop in New Brunswick) or currys.com (an art store chain I've seen in Ontario)... They both offer online shopping & have decent prices...

Thank you so much for the demonstration. I actually looked at these yesterday in Michael's and decided to walk away. I recently purchased the Windsor Newton Cotman beginner tube set. I am not sure that I like them or not yet. I love my Prima Pan sets the best so far.

Did you get any doubles? I bought the exactly same palette a few years ago and it is great and handy because it is a small size. (I make cards so I have a lot of supplies) Maybe use double sided tape to hold them down?? The half pans do click in the spots slightly. cheers

Interesting....I use the very same pants but I have the smaller 12 colour set and the half pans snap into place so they do not move around....seems odd that the larger version you have doesn't snap into place.

i have the cotman set you have i was wondering what is the divrents in the tube. sorry fpr my typos i am from belgie and englich is not my native tong .... i do line in texas

So you squirt the tubes into the pans to dry.

Some sticky tape under the little pods? And I think I’ve seen individual pans of color available too.

I’ve had a pan set the has lasted me 3 years without even hitting the bottom of the pan

Emma, you can glue them down :)

if you close your pans do the paints break in pieces and fall all over. i traveled and they broke and made mess . Do u have to rough up the wells so it doesnt bead up?

I also am on a 'budget', as I run out of the student grade tube color, would it be ok to replace that color with professional grade tube? (with my Michael's coupon, of course :) I mean, would they mix well with the others?

Thanks for the advice to start out with a limited pallet... if you could only pick 12 colors which would you pick?