Outside the Lines

Linda Hanson came to the Castle in the Air studio today to teach her Watercolor Postcards class. Although I wasn't in the class I found myself drawn in time and time again throughout the day. Linda's classes are perfect for beginners, but even though I've painted since I was little, every time I have taken a class with her I've learned something new.

Today while I was peering in, I saw the most ingenious traveling paint set Linda had made. She took an old Altoids tin, finished the inside and outside with enamel paints, and put together her very own set of colors by filling little trays with squeezes of watercolor paint from tubes. Even though the tubes are expensive, this solution is more economical in the long run. A single 8ml tube like the ones in this photo might contain a lifetime supply of that color.

But it's not the economics of Linda's paint set that makes me love it. It's the fact that it's so personal. Linda only has to buy the colors that she wants, not set after set of pre-made palettes created by someone who she doesn't know and who doesn't know her. We don't all see the world in Dioxazine Violet or Vandyke Brown (my own current palette at home doesn't contain any red, yellow, or orange), so why should we be limited to the palette sold to us?