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Travel watercolor set, How to!

making an candy tin into a field watercolor set.

Making a travel watercolor set out of an Altoids Small tin.

I wanted something I could easily pocket, sturdy, a ulta compact. I have been super happy with this solution, it is a modification of others I have found online. The big difference is that I’m using clear legos to create the cake pans. I can switch them out, or rearrange them with out a mess or fuss.

Here you can see my set up, paints out, tins cleaned, test page to the right where I test my colors (I still forget what color is what) and Legos.

Supplies:

  1. One “Altoids Small” tin.
  2. Twelve two space bricks, Clear (clear bricks don’t have an inner support).
  3. One flat 4 x 6 space piece.
  4. White spray paint, plastic loving (Krylon Fusion)
  5. White spray paint, old fashion metal loving paint (Flat white Krylon)
  6. Paint, watercolor tubes.
  7. brush, water and paper, for color testing.

Below is just a suggestion:

Lemon Yellow — cool light yellow
Cadmium Yellow Med. — warm opaque yellow
Cadmium Orange — medium opaque orange
Cadmium Red — warm (toward orange) opaque light red
Alizarin Permanent — cool (toward blue) transparent
Ultramarine Violet — violet
Ultramarine Blue — warm (toward red) blue
Cobalt Blue — "true blue"
Manganese Blue Hue — cool (toward green) water blue
Cadmium Green — opaque light green
Sap Green — dark earthy transparent green with yellow undertone 

Start with a “Altoids Small” tin. Dump (or eat) all the mints, then clear and dry the tin.

This tin is clean and ready to paint.

Gather your Legos: 12 clear two space bricks and 1 flat 4×6 piece.

Add the bricks to the flat piece upside down, so that the nobs are facing down, what you should be looking at is a bunch of open spaces, like a book shelf.

Krylon Fusion and Flat white, if you like you can use Gloss instead.  

Take that piece and place it nobs down and spray paint it with the plastic loving gloss paint, I am using Krylon Fusion. Then lightly paint the tin with the flat metal loving spray paint, just the insides. 

Note:  I use flat paint on the tin because I like the added tooth on my mixing surface.

Then fit the painted lego “shelf” into the tin. It should pop in with a slight push, if it gives you trouble pinch the sides and push harder.

This is what it should look like, you can reorder the bricks or stack them vertically ( two side by side) if you like.

Then fill up the shelves or spaces with your favorite watercolor. Let the paint air dry for a day and your ready to travel.

IMG_3733

This is what you get when your done. The one on the right has bricks that was never spray painted, still clear.