DIY studio watercolor box.

I was watching a Mateusz Urbanowicz´ video about a custom made studio watercolor box where he keeps together all his paint of one brand. He made it himself with wood from scratch. I thought it was a great idea, as he explained, having access to other paints that we keep in our drawers. His beautiful wood work inspired me to do the same, keep all my watercolor paint in one box and doing it myself. In my search for materials for the box, I found a bargain instead, a beautiful box I could use, it was the right size and it was flat, for half price! I couldn’t pass on that one, it would save me effort and money. Now that I had the box, I needed to do some custom work,  the addition of a grid to hold the pans. I like using whole pans so I would plan accordingly. This is the original box and it’s content.

I bought wood, glue for wood, polyurethane and a lid support hinge. First I removed the plastic trays that came in the box.

I covered the bottom with wood to elevate the pans a little, I think it would be more functional. Then I worked on the layout to max out the space, then I handsaw and sanded wood sticks to be used as dividers.

The raw of pans had spaces in between so added wood sticks to the sides to fill the space and to anchor the dividers.

The assembled pieces of wood looked like this. I liked it. So now I would glue it all together and later added 2 layers of polyurethane to protect the wood from stains and to clean the box when it gets dirty with use. 

Lastly, I installed the hinge to hold the lid where I can see the colors of the palette on paper and pasted 4 large bumpers on each corner at the bottom of the box so it won’t slide. Voilà! My new studio palette for ALL my transparent watercolor paint and additional  pan spaces for future colors. 

It measures 10 in x 8.5 in. It fits 56 whole standard size pans, interchangeable. Pans won’t move with the help of a little bit of sticky putty at the bottom. This palette doesn’t have any mixing areas, I have multiple porcelain mixing trays that I prefer to use instead of plastic or metal. I treated myself with this DIY project. It’s a big improvement in my studio and a great way to start the year.