What's Wrong With John Howard Sanden's Palette?

[Richard Budig]

Can anyone tell me what is wrong with John Howard Sanden

[Julie Deane]

Well, i guess I'll jump in and add my two cents....

Artists find what palette works for them through trial and error, workshops, classes, books, etc.

If you find that people are afraid to admit to using Sanden's colors, it might be because they feel that they are admitting that they don't know how to mix colors on their own. Others might feel that it smacks of a "formulaic" approach. Maybe so - but certain "great masters" also had their formulas - in other words, they found a general approach that worked for them, in order to speed up production. In my opinion, from viewing Sanden's videos, he premixes his colors to speed up his painting process. A purely practical matter. If an artist likes the way he arranges his colors and choose to buy their paint premixed from him in order to save time, what's the shame in that?

[Steven Sweeney]

I suspect that some critics of pre-mix painting systems

[Mike Dodson]

Mr. Sanden offer's his reason for the success of his palette on one
of his web-sites. He can describe it much better than I.
http://www.worldofportraitpainting.c...den/promix.htm

After many years of using the exact same palette as Sanden, I began using his pro-mix colors as an addition to my palette about two years ago. My rational was that I was already creating some of these mixtures out of my current palette and it was taking me quite some time to do so, a process that I had been doing for years and knew how to do it pretty well I think. Why not have someone do it for me? I am not a full-time artist therefore time is of essence to me. Isn't that one of the reasons we pre-mix anyway?