Taboret

The taboret is a little drawer unit that sits to the right of me me when I’m painting in oil in the studio. It holds paints, brushes, pens and pencils.

The white palette surface where I mix my paints rests on a hinged board which can can be set to any angle. If I need to refer to the color wheel (see posts on color), I can hook it above the mixing surface.


1. The blobs of paint squeezed from the tube rest on a 3x18 inch paint shelf. This is a wooden plywood surface that floats above the mixing surface.
2. I mix paints with a palette knife on a roll of standard white freezer paper, which is coated with polyethylene. The roll hangs on a wooden dowel below the paint shelf (see photo below).
3. Mixing cups with Grumtine and Liquin. Little wedges nearby hold the paper in tightly.
4. Peanut butter jar with kerosene for cleaning brushes. There’s a screen halfway down inside the jar to give something for the brush to scrub against.
5. Jar of Liquin, an alkyd based medium. It dries fast, but with a dull sheen that needs to be varnished later.
6. Plastic tub from a Chinese restaurant. I cut a rectangular hole in the lid with a mat knife. At the end of the day I scrape down the paints on the paint shelf using a palette knife, and the scrapings go in here. When it’s full, I dispose of the whole tub.
7. Paint rag with a wiggly wire to hold the brush handles. This is where brushes sit while they’re in use.
8. Note the door hinges under the mixing panel. This allows the whole panel to be raised up. Unseen beneath the hinged panel, is an adjustable sliding clamp that fixes the slope at any angle.
9. Brushes are mostly bristles and white nylon flats.


Here’s how the freezer paper fits under the edge of the tip-up palette. Fresh paper unrolls with the plastic side up, and constantly gives a new surface for mixing. The used paper tears off on the right of the palette.

In drawers below are pencils, pens, markers, paints, and mediums.

The whole thing is on wheels, allowing it to roll around.

Tomorrow: Downfacing Planes