Holbein Watercolor Palette 1000 and 250 Review

today I'm talking about the Holbein

1000

palette

, the 250 and a couple more

palette

s maybe some of these maybe one of these maybe this guy hello everyone, it's Brian again and today I'm talking about studio palettes, more specifically the Holbein

1000

and 250. models, but I thought I'd start with this palette. This is the type of palette I've used for probably about 25 years. This is the type of palette I started with and used pretty much until a few years ago. Years ago this is a plastic talent, a kind of vacuum formed plastic paddle that is quite thin but effective, it has four holes in the lid.

Here it's actually made by I'm not sure what the company is, but the name of the palette is Robert E Wood Palette. I mean, it's a nice palette, but I found that it had some downsides for me. I got to the point where I wanted to hover over my work and hold a palette more often instead of setting it aside and So this has to be a little cumbersome, it has big mixing areas inside, it has a lot of paint wells. for the painting, but it ended up taking up a lot of space on my desk, so I started looking. something I could maybe use alongside this and which led me to a cheaper plastic palette like this one.

I was looking for something I could hold over my work that had a thumb hole so I could hold it like that. I handled and painted and this worked for a while, but it turned out that it smudged very easily and the paint wells were quite small for some of the larger brushes, so I started looking for something that combined the best of both types of palettes. that I had a decent amount of mixing space without taking up, you know, a gigantic amount of space on my table and something that was maybe a little bigger than this, a little more sophisticated, I mean, and of course, any palette Whatever you choose Holding your paints and mixing paint is great and anything will work, but I was looking for something that could take a little beating, something that would hold up over time.

This always felt a little cheap and stained easily, so I decided to go for it. I would choose the Holbein 1000, it was a gift from my family, but I guided them in the right direction on what I would like to have and they got me this 1000th Holbein palette and this is a steel palette. There are many aluminum versions of this paddle from other companies, but this is the real deal. This is a steel paddle like I said you might want to take note of this box which is the official Holbein box if it doesn't look like this or and doesn't have to hold mine you might get a knockoff so anyway I love this palette.

I love that it folds flat and has a decent amount of space to mix it up. I like its sturdy construction. I like the paint on it. a Japan to finish off whatever that means, but I think it's just a tougher black paint, it doesn't ship of course, I'm getting a little scratches and stuff from use, but it has a very nice finish, the white glaze on the inside is very nice and the mixing has been buttery smooth and the paint you know on some cheaper palettes can dissipate and turn into little blobs of paint. In my experience, this has remained in nice puddles of mixture. so I really enjoy it and like I said, one of the things I really wanted in a palette was the ability for it to be able to rest on my art table, but also have the ability to hold it in your hand like this and be able to pass the cursor over my work.

This palette has 24 wells which you can see here and there are some extras here. I don't use them because I obviously haven't filled the palette yet, but I just don't need them, but that's a good thing. It has so many wells if someone needs that much space. I have heard of one downside to this deck: they can be prone to rust. I haven't had that problem. I live in a very dry climate but I have talked to other artists who have had problems with rust and a friend of mine Jared who runs the YouTube channel, Jared loves to draw by the way if you love

watercolor

get Do a favor and check out his channel.

He's amazing, he does amazing, magnificent work, but anyway, in talking to him, he's had problems with rust on these Holbein paddles and he's had a couple of the smaller ones, a 250 that I'll show you in a minute, with the ones that had trouble resting, but for me, in a drier climate, I haven't had any problems, but I guess. That's something to keep in mind now, the palette closes in the middle like this, but it doesn't have a snap closure and that's the only downside for me about this palette: it opens very easily, it doesn't have any kind of closure . mechanism there which is a little strange to me because they wouldn't fit the way the metal is formed but that's easily solved with some kind of rubber bands as a quick side note, be a little careful with other companies They make pallets that are like all the binding.

This is one I bought before purchasing the full binding. This is an aluminum paddle and works great. I store my M Gram paints in this one, but it's a much cheaper build. The metal is quite flimsy. when it is closed there is a lot of changes, it actually closed on me in a strange way, yes anyway this is not a bad option but keep in mind that they are out there and are not true hull links now Holbein like La company is kind of interesting because it has a very European sounding name, but it's actually a Japanese company founded in 1900 and I'm not sure what they were called before they used the name Holbein, but they adopted the name Holbein in 1946.

And from what I understand , is named after the German portrait painter Hans Holbein the Younger, so I thought it was interesting. I always thought Holbein was a European company and it's actually a Japanese company so what would I say if you're looking. one of these now I'm a little wary of Amazon. I was looking at a listing for what was supposed to be a Holbein 1000 on Amazon, but when I started reading the

review

s, a lot of people were disappointed because they were getting some kind of cheaper knockoff version. It wasn't actually a full buy brand, although the description said Holbein, which is a bit strange, so anyway, if I bought one of these today I'd probably go to eBay and look for a real seller who is selling. from Japan which has a high feedback rating and I know I have bought many different things from Japanese sellers over the years and the distance to the US is quite a bit but I have not had any problems receiving the things I ordered from Japan, so that's something to consider, but I'd say eBay is probably your best bet, and with a trustworthy seller, it's probably a pretty safe option.

I bet I also want to talk about the Holbein 1000's little brother, the Holbein model number 250. I bought it in Denver, Colorado last summer when I was traveling, found it at an art store and had to pick it up, it was just It's a bit of fun, like a mini version of the 1000 and I thought it would be cool to eventually move on to this as a travel rig. Everything I said about the 1000 in terms of durability in terms of build quality enamel paint on the interior supports. for the 250 it's also a great little palette and I can't wait to move on to it.

I'll show it to you next to the big one here and you can see it's like a cute little version. of the 1000 and has the same advantages and disadvantages. This one also has no class whatsoever, which is a bit annoying, but a rubber band would fix that for travel. I should also note that Holbein also makes other sizes among these. Two pallets have one, I think, a 500 model that's a little bit smaller than the other and then they have one that's smaller, but not as small as the 250, but I think it's like the 300 or 350 model, something like that, which is a little bigger. than this, but not like these larger palettes, I thought I would do a quick summary of the pros and cons of these Holbein palettes in the professional category, they are very sturdy, the construction and everything they contain is very nice, the paint It's nice, it's a nice shiny and durable black paint.

Inside we have the white enamelled surface that mixes the paints very well. I like the portability of these, especially this 250 when closed it is quite small, it fits very easily in a bag, the 1000 of course is a larger paddle, but closed it is quite portable, it is not too big, it has a thumb cup that helps with portability and you know, using it outdoors for plein air painting. One of the other things I like is that there's quite a bit of mixing room in these, you know, relative to their size, but there's a decent amount of mixing room in these when they're unfolded and open.

Cons of things maybe not the best at this price, they are a little pricey for a palette, this one is around $100 us. I've seen the 250 in the $60 range when I saw it on sale, another thing I wish was better about these but it's not a deal breaker for me is that these don't close at all. That's something I wish they would do, another drawback would be and again I haven't had any problems with this but they can be prone to rusting if you're in a very humid area and lastly especially if you're in the US. Availability of these is a little difficult, you'll have to do some research to find them on sale, but I think it's worth it if you're someone who likes to have a good palate.

I also want to quickly talk about a couple more things in terms of using the Holbein 1000 in the studio and something I discovered about cleaning these enamel surfaces. I watched a YouTube video of Paul Fogarty. There aren't many

review

s of the Holbein 1000 out there and that's one of the reasons I thought about doing this, but one of the things you mentioned is that when filling these wells with fresh paint, it's best not to try to get the paint to the corners because what can happen is that the paint begins to dry and shrink. you can remove the glaze from the corners and from the corners and from the edges, so it's better initially, you can see I've done that here to put the paint right in the middle of the well and then leave the water and the brush and everything That type of work makes the paint reach the corners at a more gradual rate and that way it won't dry all at once and remove the polish.

I haven't experienced any polish coming off, but I'm guessing. That's something to keep in mind. I also use this palette. It has plenty of room to mix, but sometimes I look for additional mixing areas. If I have too many washes something is happening and one of the things I have found and this. it's mostly for us viewers, Target stores have a whole aisle of white ceramic plates and things like the ones I found here, this little square one and some little round ones, and I think they're great for larger washes and things you know Yes I need to mix a pure color like, for example, whatever you know, this is like a Prussian blue or something, just a lot of pure color that I use like big washes, these are great for that, sorry, I also found other palettes in the In the same aisle, you know, Target has tons of different plates and bowls for pretty cheap prices on these white ceramic things, so that's another option, you know, just an extra little tray for mixing to the side so that now you have a supplement area there in kind of In that sense, thinking in that direction, the goal also in the hallway of her bathroom has these ceramic trays and I love the things that they are on.

There is some white ceramic like the plates I showed you, but they have a nice layer of rubber applied on them so they don't slide around on your table, I mean they are a really good size and I mean you can see this one next to the palette where I had some extra washes and things going on, but yeah, these are in the bathroom. hallway and they have them in different siding colors, I think there's a black and a green, but these are really pretty, I think they're about eight dollars, eight or nine dollars, cool stuff, one last thing, two fingers, but one Last thing is this brush soap and I'm not trying to pawn this soaked brush on anyone, but I've found that some artists don't care if they have a little stain on their palettes and others do, and sometimes it's worth knowing if it builds up. enough stains that they can start to interfere with evaluating your color mixes for those who like to get them back to a bright, clear white without staining, this works wonders, it's called the master brush cleaner and preserver.

I see this everywhere. Where I saw it at Hobby Lobby, I'm sure the online art supply places have it, it's a great brush cleaner, but when other things haven't even touched the stains, like I've tried Windex and other soaps and things that some people use as a magic eraser, but that's abrasive and could eventually wear down the surface, so I'm a little cautious about using a magic eraser, but anyway, I take this as a wet paper towel, so I rub it here, I rub it on the roof of my mouth, you know? then take a pure paper towel with just clean water and wash it.

This product removes stains incredibly well. I don't know what's different about soap.Normal hands, but it works wonders on stains, it's great, so if you have problems with stains on your palettes and you are exasperated because you don't know how to remove them. Try this. It has worked surprisingly well for me and I have even tried it on some plastic palettes with quite a bit of success. I even tried it on the Robert E wood palette that I showed you and it removed 10 year old dyes without any problems, so yeah, great, thanks for looking today. I hope this wasn't too boring.

I just realized there weren't many. Reviews of all the pallet shopping on YouTube and I thought I would make one. There will be more videos on painting techniques and other things in the future. Thanks for watching and I'll talk to you later. Have a good one.