In my previous post, I showed a Peerless watercolor palette as part of my artist travel bag.

While it’s lightweight and versatile in its packaged form, I decided to lighten my load even more and use it to customize a palette specifically for the trip I am planning through West Texas and New Mexico.

Santa Fe will be my final destination, so that’s where I imagine I’ll have the most time to do some quick sketches inspired by what I see or have seen along the way.

With that in mind, I clipped these colors from the Peerless palette: Japonica Scarlet; Light Green; Brilliant Yellow; Sky Blue and Pearl Grey. While it’s not a comprehensive set, I feel it gets me off to a great start capturing the natural beauty of the southwest, and I can also blend most of the colors to make new ones. (The red and blue to capture a violet sunset, or the yellow, red and blue for adobe structures, sandy hues and many skin tones, for example.)

I used a little glue to attach them to watercolor paper stiff enough to hold up to the substantial paint squares and test swatches. This is less than one-third of a Peerless page, so not only do I have plenty of color to last a few days on the road, I have many more options to choose from or use again for the next trip!

I’ll slide this paper palette into a protective cellophane mailing sheath before packing it, to avoid damage.