How to Draw a Paint Palette Step by Step

by easylinedrawing

This tutorial shows how to draw a paint palette with some paints on it in six steps. It includes illustrated examples and quick drawing instructions.

You can see the steps included in the tutorial in the preview image above. In this case the palette is draw as though it’s viewed on a bit of an angle (instead of directly from the top). This makes the drawing slightly more complicated but gives it a more three dimensional appearance.

Start the drawing in pencil and make light easy to erase lines (in case you need to make a correction). You can darken them later on with a black pen or marker.

If you also want to draw a paint brush to go with the palette see:

How to Draw an Artist’s Brush Step by Step

Step 1 – Draw an Outline of the Paint Palette

Begin by outlining the shape of the palette as shown in the example. It should be rounded on one side and have an inward curve on the other.

Step 2 – Draw the Thumb Hole

For this simple step just draw the thumb hole. Make it oval in shape.

Step 3 – Draw the Edge/Side

To make the drawing look more three dimensional show a bit of the edge/side (like the palette is being viewed on an angle).

Step 4 – Draw the Side of the Hole

Similar to the previous step, add the side/edge to the hole.

Step 5 – Outline the Paints & Finish the Line Drawing

On top of the palette outline the paints. Generally, you want these to go along it’s sides. In this case there are seven of them in total.

As shown in the example, make the shape of each blob of paint somewhat random but also try and keep each of them relatively close in size.

Once done with the above, you can trace over your lines with a thin black marker/pen or simply darken them with the pencil.

Step 6 – Color the Paint Palette

To color the palette paints and/or colored pencils can be good options. To color the paints you can use any medium you like (paints, markers, colored pencils, etc…).

Make the palette itself a light yellow orange (optionally with a bit of brown) so that it looks like wood. Make it’s side a slightly darker (add more brown to the yellow). You can make the colors of the paints whatever you like but generally you will probably want to at least have a couple of the more common ones like yellow, blue and red.

Also, when coloring the paints leave a tiny white reflection inside each of them. You may want to outline these before coloring just so that you don’t accidentally go over them. Do it either very lightly with a regular pencil or with a colored pencil/maker that matches the color of that particular paint.

Conclusion

Sometimes adding just a little more detail can really improve the appearance of your artwork. In this case, showing a bit of the palettes side and giving each paint a small reflection can help make the drawing look more dimensional. Without them the drawing would appear more flat and less interesting.

If you like these kinds of simple step by step drawing guides, be sure to also try the following: