(This post newly updated with better link to owl sound)

Here’s a Spectacled owl (Pulsatrix perspicillata), staring hard at us from its perch in the tropical lowlands of Sarapiquí in Costa Rica.  What could be more delightful than a cinnamon-and-cholcolate owl with white “spectacles?”

I have the answer: one that makes a strange, rapidly pulsating noise like a ray-gun, pwup-pwup-pwup-pwup.  Click on this previous post for etymological details of its scientific name.

(Photo A.Shock)

I’m dying to make one out of clay — a jar perhaps, with a swiveling head?

…when you were in Costa Rica?  Yes.

Did you get a photo of a Resplendent quetzal?  No.

And was the Quetzal resplendent?  Yes.

Resplendent quetzales (Pharomachrus cocinno) are glimmering emerald birds who inhabit the dense, wet montane and cloud forests of parts of Central America. The males have splendid iridescent fringed tail plumes which trail extravagantly behind them, inviting stares and admiration from both female quetzales and birders, and challenging artists with inadequate pages.  During my recent visit to Costa Rica, several quetzales crossed our path, looking down on us from a secure height, feeding, drying wet feathers, or just loafing.  One adult male bird appeared suddenly overhead, so silently we almost missed him, while we were admiring hordes of busy hummers at feeders near Monteverde.  As with hummingbirds, the exact shade of a quetzal’s plumage depends on light and angle, and can look emerald, azure, glinting with gold, or simply black.  I’ve never seen a photo do the colors justice, let alone an unsubtle computer-graphic image like my effort (although it improves with enlargement, click on image to embiggen).

Throughout their range from southern Mexico to Panama, quetzales are endangered, mainly due to habitat loss.  They are frugivores, and favor the fruits of trees such as the aguacatillo, which has a sort of miniature avocado-like fruit.  Quetzales are cavity nesters, laying two eggs in old woodpecker holes fairly high in the canopy, and males and females share nesting duties.  During the day, nests can be located by the trailing tail plumes of el macho hanging out of the nest hole.  A curious feature of Quetzales is that, unlike most birds, their toes are arranged two forward, and two back.

Queztals or Quetzales?  Either is a correct plural; the first is standard in English, the second in Spanish.

The name quetzal (usually pronounced KETzul in english and ketSALL en español) is reportedly a word from the Nahuatl language, and refers to the spendors of the birds’ tails.  It’s likely associated at least etymologically with the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent.

Click here for an excellent photo essay on Resplendent quetzales by T.Beth Kinsey of Firefly Forest.

Living in Arizona there’s no room for complaint about the quantity and loveliness of the hummers which visit our yard feeders. In the Phoenix area we have Costa’s and Anna’s year round, Black-chinned in summer, with Broad-tailed and Rufous making migratory appearances. I’ve seen a brilliant Broad-billed just two miles from here at the Desert Botanical Garden, so it’s a potential yard bird, as well. Further southeast in the state, hummer numbers swell to around 17 species — by contrast much of the U.S. hosts only one species, the Ruby-throated.

So only a truly spectacular hummer turn-out would impress a southwestern observer. Without doubt, Costa Rica provided that. During a thirteen-day trip, in various habitats and elevations, we saw about 34 species of hummers. Most I couldn’t capture in pixels: with a zoom-impaired camera, the best chance I have for snagging hummingbirds in photos is at feeders. These three posed obligingly on and around the feeders of Savegre Mountain Lodge.

<< Green violet-ear (Colibri thalassinus). These were quite common, and quite beguiling. A bit crabby, too: when another hummer got too near, those violet-ear patches would flare outward. Very threatening; we quailed at the sight. This bird has new feathers molting in on its forehead, visible as tiny white quills, still wrapped in whitish keratin like shoe-lace ends to facilitate outward growth.

>> Right: male Volcano hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula). These little toughies are related to our norte americaño Selasphori like Allen’s, Rufous, and Broad-tailed, and are just as glittery green-gold-bronze. This Cordillera de Talamanca subspecies has a plummy sheen in its gorget, slightly visible in this photo.

And lastly, below is a female White-throated mountain gem (Lampornis castaneoventris) feeding at an aloe, or perhaps a Kniphofia, flower. Her mate (not shown) has a spotless white throat and an azure forehead, but the female is marked with a handsome rusty underside, the “chestnut-belly” of its species name, castaneoventris.

(All photos A.Shock)

[This is a Spot the Bird, although it's less of a quiz than a photo series. All photos A or E Shock.  Click to enlarge.]

Here are some feral date palms, growing wild at a substantial oasis in Death Valley, CA.  The date palm is Phoenix dactylifera (“finger-bearing”), but in this case we could call it P. bubifera, “owl-bearing.”  There’s an owl in this palm, although you can’t see it. >>

Owls seem to like roosting in palms.   Every birder the world over checks palms for owls.  Great horned, Barn, Grass, whatever the local species are — if there are owls and palms together in a habitat or region, they are likely to be acquainted.  This is because palms (like pine trees) provide what owls like: concealing, sturdy roosts, and habitat and food source for prey items.  An owl perched hidden in palm fronds has a grand view of scurrying, foraging rodents at its feet — imagine regularly finding dinner on your very own kitchen floor… or, to quote Homer: “Mmmm, Floor Pie!”  (that’s the epic Homer Simpson, not Homer the epic poet).

Spot the bird: In the center of this photo, you can see a vague milky blur on the right edge of the darkest dark: the vermiculation, or fine breast barring, of a Great horned owl, Bubo virginianus. >>

It’s nearly invisible because its distinctive yellow eyes aren’t visible; owls roosting in plain sight will often consider themselves concealed by squinting.  When even one eye is revealed, the bird become easier to spot. <<

I’ve checked a lot of palm trees.  I never find owls in them (although I know others who have), but I keep checking.  This repeated optimistic searching is known in our family as checking for lard. The term was coined after a cat named the Beefweasel found an unattended pile of chopped fat on a windowsill in our St. Louis apartment, waiting to be put outside for winter-hungry titmice and chickadees.  Making good her name, the Beefweasel wolfed down the yummy chunks.  Balancing on her hind legs and sniffing hard, she checked that bountiful window-ledge for years hoping for a fatty repeat.  Birders are well-known to check for lard, too: there was a nut tree in St. Louis that was searched every winter by local birders on field trips because once in a decade past it had hosted an out-of-range Bohemian waxwing.  Among birders, places to check for lard are passed down as oral tradition: I knew about that pecan tree, but the waxwing that made it famous alit there long before my time.

So out of habit and hope, I was checking these particular palms with my binoculars, searching the deepest shadows for Good Feathery Detail (vermiculation).  And there was an owl.

>> The bird never fully unhid; this was the maximum best sighting it allowed.

It was a Great horned owl, tucked in out of the breeze, and not at all worried about us (although we didn’t go very close, being equipped with telephoto lenses and optics — owls are like cats; sometimes you have to respect their invisibility, even if it’s just in their heads).

It’s so delightful to luck into a surprise owl (which, mostly, they are), that we talked about it for the rest of the trip.  We referred to this bird as “the Boss in her Office”, because she reminded me of a boss I once had, who lurked invisible at her desk most of the time.  Although she was hidden from us as we scurried around busily, it was never a good idea to forget she was there…

Some things always amaze me.  One of them is why there are so many different Thrasher species in the arid Southwestern U.S.

Most of us who live in the Low Desert are used to two of the more common thrashers: the ubiquitous Northern mockingbird, its slender gray-and-white profile often seen on high perches, singing its melodious and varied song.  Our yard mockers rock their own vocalizations, but also the sounds of other birds, like cactus wrens, cardinals, and kestrels.  Our other common thrasher is the larger Curve-billed thrasher.  These are busy and athletic foragers, with big down-curved bills and a loud, ringing song.  They have a distinctive “wit-weet” call that people are aware of, even if they don’t know the name of the bird who’s making it in their backyard.

<< Bendire’s thrasher (Toxostoma bendirei)

But there’s another thrasher, very close in appearance to the Curve-billed, that breeds in the low desert, too, although it’s not as common.  It’s the Bendire’s thrasher.  Also a plain, mostly brown bird with a vivid and intelligent golden eye, it too has a strong, long bill, less de-curved than the Curve-billed, and pale at the base instead of dark (you can see this subtle field mark in the photo at left, especially if you click to enlarge).  It’s perhaps best distinguished by its song, which is “chewier” and to my ear, not as ringing as the Curve-billed.

In the last couple of weeks, E and I have been treated to a very bold Bendire’s thrasher singing from the tops of the sparse trees in a part of Papago Park where we walk several mornings a week.  Its chewy, bubbling song attracted our attention; I’m not sure we would have noticed it wasn’t a Curve-billed if we hadn’t heard it.

Bendire’s thrashers are known to inhabit the Park, but we hadn’t encountered one there before, so it’s been a treat for us to enjoy its consistent presence along our route.  We had a quick glimpse last week of a second nearby thrasher — it may have been another Bendire’s, so we’re wondering if this stretch of desert isn’t supporting a breeding pair.  We’re keeping our eyes open.

Etymology:

Toxostoma, the genus of some of the mimid thrashers like Curve-billed, Bendire’s, Crissal, California, Brown, and LeConte’s, is a compound name formed from two Greek elements, τόξον, bow, and στόμα, mouth, referring to the strong curved bill — in some cases extremely long and curved — of these birds.  They use it to turn over foliage and clear crevices of debris by moving it strongly from side-to-side, the action which gives them their type name, thrasher.  In search of insects and miscellaneous food items, they ream out all the stuff that settles between flagstones or cracks in the pool deck, leaving a line of turned-up crud along the joints in the cement, so we always know when the thrashers have been foraging there.

Here are two new Spot the Bird photos.  The visual puzzle is the same in each: huge background, tiny bird.  No camouflage involved, none at all; just hiding against a big landscape.

The first photo of an enormous oaktree (?) in Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior Arizona, east of Phoenix, is a photo I took because the branches of this tree were so amazingly massive and lofty.  It was only when I got it home and onto the computer that I noticed there was a bird in the shot, because it had been silent.  Lucky it wasn’t a jaguar, I guess.  By the way, you’re not looking for an intrinsically small bird, just small by comparison to this tree.  (If you find the bird, click twice for a fairly clear embiggening of its image).

I think this second one is easier, especially if you click to enlarge. This photo, ostensibly of a robust saguaro behind a line of newly leafed-out mesquite and the foot of a basalt flow in back, shows a genuinely small bird — a moderately Dinky Dude of the Desert, in fact — doing its singing thing for spring. Hear the jingling sound?

Neither of these will be hard for everyone, especially for folks whose eyes are sharp from being out in the field looking for small things in big, leafy vistas.  I’ll publish enlarged versions of the pictures in a subsequent post.  Extra credit for IDing the birds to species (not that there’s a prize or anything, except kudos to augment your birding kleos.  And, to wax perturbingly didactic, EXTRA extra credit if you know the diff between kudos, Gk κῦδος, and kleos, κλέος).

And if you know what the big tree in the top photo is, please let me know, because I don’t…

Good Luck — I hope you SPOT THE BIRD!

For other Spot the Bird posts, go to the sidebar on the left, and click on the category, spot the bird.

(Top photo, A.Shock; bottom photo, E.Shock)

A while back, I posted about my process for making horned lizard bowls (affectionately known as Horny toads) from clay.  Here are the next few steps, all shown in one photo, below.

To the right is a now completely assembled and textured horned lizard, in the leather hard stage, drying.  In the center is a bone dry and partially tinted lizard — note that the clay is now a lighter buff.  I use a sponge and mute slip colors to give the textured skin a mottled appearance, like a horned lizard’s camo-flecked pelt.  (You may remember that slip is a paint-like water and clay mixture with mineral oxides and stains added.)   The colors, which look very contrasty and unnatural at this point, will calm down and become more subtle during firing.  Normally, adding slip is done no later than the leather hard stage to avoid flaking, but the refined slips I use have no problems hanging on.  On the left is a completed horned lizard awaiting its first, or bisque, firing. I’ve added the ants with a very fine brush (a 00 squirrel liner), also in slips.  This is a touchy job: the fine work requires a fairly long process of painting delicate lines — the more ants, the longer the work time — and a lot of handling of a bone dry piece with pointy sticky-outy bits.  If you’ve worked with clay you know that this bone-dry phase (where all the liquid water has evaporated from the clay body) is when a piece is at its most fragile.  On top of that, if something like a horn, a toe or a leg snaps off, it is difficult or even impossible to reattach it trustworthily.  Not that… ahem… that ever happens, or if it did I would admit it… These guys, Regal Horned Lizards, have 10 coronal horns, and so I have to be careful while “anting” them.

<< A favorite teeshirt of E’s, a mimbres horned lizard design.  Nice depiction of the lateral spiny scales along its flanks.

A note on the ants.  They are Pogonomyrmex, a genus of harvester ants, called Pogos for short, understandably.  These are the guys you see issuing forth from their nests, with every seed and scrap of vegetation gleaned clean to the grit for a 5 meter radius around the entrance.  They have a potent and painful bite, but despite that, they are Horned lizards’ most favoritest thing to eat.  It’s tough to capture their essence in a sludgy, opaque medium like clay slip, because they’re waxy like tropical fruit: sort of clear but satiny, too.  I can get close to the effect by depicting them with highlights in white on their red bodies.

Pogonomyrmex ants photographed at Kartchner Caverns State Park (A.Shock)   >>

They’re extraordinary animals: physically very strong, and focused in their social pursuits, with big bolster-like heads (which appear to be larger than their abdomens) sporting impressive grasping mouthparts you would have no trouble seeing with your naked eye, if you got close enough.  Or, you can just click on the photo above — which I call Pogos Agogo — and look at the solitary ant to the lower left.

If you love excellent up-your-nose close-up photos of ants (and who doesn’t?) check out the site of Alex Wild, myrmecologist, or studier of ants.  Better still click here to see his photos of Pogo ants in particular, to get a much better view of the fearsome mouthparts than in my photo above.

Etymological side-bar. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles’ posse were the Myrmidons. μύρμηξ, myrmex, is ant in Greek.

You can see finished horned lizard bowls in the Three Star Owl Shop.

Gila monsters (Heloderma suspectum) are large stumpy lizards with bright handsome markings that are both cryptic and aposematic simultaneously, and whose hands look like neoprene wetsuit gloves with claws.  They are remarkable for being one of only two venomous lizard species in the world.  They live in the Sonoran and southern Great Basin Deserts and love to eat quail eggs, nestling birds and mammals, and other slow-moving prey items. (Below: captive gila monster on a wooden schoolhouse floor, photo A.Shock)

Approximately life-sized clay Gila Monster “bowls” are items I only make one or two of per year or so. They’re quite time-consuming, since they’re textured, slipped, and glazed pretty much beaded scale by beaded scale.  Here’s one now :

1)  I form a blob of clay that looks like a gila monster.  This early stage is the time to get any sinuousness in the tail, neck and belly, so the clay “remembers” it.  Then it’s time to put the wet lump aside to set up, or stiffen slightly, so that it can be shaped further.  Sponges help hold a pose, if desired.  >>

2)  As the water leaves it, the clay becomes more self-supporting.  While waiting for this to happen, I make legs — oddly spindly for such a stout body — with blocked out feet, to stiffen for adding later.  I also hollow out two thick places in the monster body, to aid in drying: the head, and the base of the tail.  This also makes the completed piece lighter and better balanced.  It is important to make a tiny, invisible passage into the hollow part from the outside, to let air escape during firing, or there could be an explosion.  <<

3)   With the clay slightly stiffer, I smooth the shape into its final form, including carving the toes from the blocked-out “hands”, and rounding the belly “bowl” part.  This shape causes herp boys to giggle, because it makes the lizard look like roadkill to those with scavenging permits for heloderm pelts.  From my point of view, it makes the piece functional, if desired: an Effigy Vessel, and not just a representation.

4)  The next step is to attach the legs, and texture the skin.  This must be done at a particular point of dryness, when the clay is still wet enough to accept the stamps I use to make the “nail-heads” in the skin (Heloderma means “nail-skin”), but stiff enough to hold up to the handling and pressure of stamping it.  Then it’s waiting for it to be bone-dry for slipping (right).  >>

The belly-texture, which looks like pink-and-black Indian corn on the cob, is carved into the clay rather than stamped — this is particularly time-consuming, especially for a part that isn’t seen very frequently.  Early on, I searched the web for a reference photo for Gi-Mo belly-scales, and never found one.  Fortunately, I persuaded a handler at a wildlife education event to flip a live one up for photos (she held it vertically, not upside-down), and got this great shot, which tells me all I need to know about what the unders of a monster look like, including vent details (<< left).  You can just see the heavy-duty cowhide welding gloves the handler was wearing; they were covered with black half-moons: venom-marks from previous crabby bites.  <<

5)  Slipping an item bone dry is slightly risky, as adding water to a piece at this point can cause cracking.  But adding slip to a dry surface gives a crisper, less texture-obscuring coating.  I use a combo of commercial under-glazes and slips I make in the studio.  It’s necessary at this point to choose the subspecies: the banded H.s. cinctum from the northern part of its range, or H.s. suspectum from the southern part, which has a more complicated reticulated pattern.  This one is kind of a combo. >>

6) After bisquing, I glaze the piece with dots (another labor and time-intensive step), each dot on the raised nail-head part of the texture, with a combination of black and pinkish-orange glazes.  After it’s fired, this adds depth of color and a glint to the lizard’s skin, similar to the fresh skin of a newly-molted lizard.  Sometimes, I add a leather tongue, if the monster’s mouth has been made slightly opened.  I’m looking into making a fully-open mouth next time, with wire teeth, giving it a really venomous-looking gape.  Here’s a shot of the finished version, a little more bulbous than an authentic lizard, but — after all, it’s a bowl:

Etymology

As mentioned above, Heloderma means “nail-skin”, for the fact that the monster’s skin looks studded or beaded rather than scaled.  suspectum, the species name, comes from the fact that early herpetologists were uncertain if the animal were venomous or not, and only suspected it was because of anecdotal accounts of its potentially lethal bite.  Eventually it was confirmed by laboratory experiments, and dissection, which revealed the large venom glands in the lower jaw.

Check out more info about the natural history of these lizards here.

All photos A.Shock

It looks a lot like a toad, with a stumpy physique and warty skin, but it’s a Canyon Tree Frog (Hyla arenicolor).  How to tell it’s a frog? One way: no parotoid glands — instead you can see the round flat areas of its tympani (hearing structures) behind and slightly below the eye. Also, this frog has large adhesive pads on the ends of its toes to aid in climbing (after all it is a tree frog), which most toads don’t do.  Canyon tree frogs are variable in color and spottage (a technical term: feel free to pronounce it spot-AAHJ), but this individual is fairly pale and nearly spot-free. They inhabit rocky stream courses in Arizona and the Southwest with intermittent or permanent water, where they enjoy feeding upon small invertebrates. This one was photographed at Aravaipa Canyon. (Photo A.Shock, 2009)

Etymology

Hyla arenicolor: arenicolor is a Latin compound meaning sand-colored: to the Romans as well as to us, an arena is a sand-covered area.  The origin of the genus Hyla is a bit more complex, and much more picturesque.  To start, the greek work ὗλη — cognate with the more familiar Latin sylva, means woodland, and may come into play in the naming of a genus of tree frogs. But a more colorful tradition connects the genus name with Hylas, one of the original Argonauts who while searching for fresh water ashore was pulled into a woodland spring by a desirous water nymph.  Hylas’s companions — including Herakles and Jason — searched the island for him in vain, crying his name over and over: the story goes that the incessant cry of his name relates to the repetitive calling of tree frogs.

above: the story of the rape of Hylas, “Hylas and the Nymphs” by J.W. Waterhouse, 1896. If you’re lucky enough to be in London during the next couple of weeks, check out the exhibition: J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite, it’s on at the Royal Academy until 13 Sept 2009. (And, there’s a pleasing similarity between the color schemes of the Waterhouse painting and the tree frog photo at the top: the watery-brown background, ivory skin tones and heart-shaped green foliage.)

Everybody in the world has posted their version of the Miniature Watercolor Box, usually ingeniously created from any flat metal tin, often Altoids, sometimes Velamints, or others (see here, here, and here, just for a few examples of many).  These projects are all well-described and illustrated. I hereby add my version, but will only add a couple of tips I think are an improvement on what others have already shown.

As a hiker/backpacker, I’m always looking for a way to carry along sketching and watercolor or gouache supplies that doesn’t take up too much volume or weigh too much. (Or cost too much: commercially made ones are available at artist’s suppliers but seem exorbitant, if pretty cool.) Not all hikes yield usable painting or drawing time, and I want to carry something that I won’t begrudge space to if I don’t get around to using it. So I was enthralled by the mint-tin plein-air kits I saw on the Web.  It’s just the kind of project to seize my imagination, so off I went.  Which brings up the first tip: if this is your kind of project, beware taking up more time constructing your kits (or posting about them!) than painting with them — and I speak from experience — it’s easy to go there.  Although, the preparation can be big fun and have its own rewards.

The basic idea is to use empty, flat, metal boxes (such as those in the top photo in various stages of the process) to carry small containers (like contact lens cups, or polymer clay depressions, or purpose-made watercolor half-pans) filled with tube watercolors pre-squeezed out into them and allowed to dry.  The dried colors can be re-wet and used to paint, just like commercially available pan watercolors.  But with a customized mint-tin box, you can choose your own brands and colors, or easily switch them out for landscape, botanical, or portrait projects — whatever you like. (Second tip — don’t glue your pans permanently in place, as some folks recommend.  If they’re inconveniently loose, fasten them down with something temporary, like double-sided tape or that gummy product they sell; or, wedge them in with a bit of sponge or paper towel, which would be useful anyway for blotting. You want to be able to take them out to change or clean.)  Many people like to accompany these tiny paint-boxes with water-brushes like those made by Niji and Sakura, which have water reservoirs in their barrels, so they don’t have to carry extra water in a bottle. (The photo on the right shows the insides of boxes in various stages, the top one awaiting enameling, the other two enameled and awaiting paint selections.)

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s been saving metal Altoids tins for years with the idea that some day they’d come in handy.  Well, this is that day.  It turns out the older ones are best — the ones with the flat lids, without the product name embossed in the lid (like the one below on the left, painted with a red anti-rust primer).  The embossing is fancy, but since the inner lid becomes your mixing surface, a flat one is better (more about fixing that in a minute).

The inner lids of most brands are silver like the top one in the photo above — those are usable, but it’s easier to see your colors if you’re mixing on white. Some tins are already white inside. A few folks have inserted a portion of a plastic mixing tray here; good, but there’s both extra weight and extra work to cut it out of an existing watercolor palette (although you do get to wield your Dremel tool).  Others spray paint the surface white.  That’s the solution I went with, but here’s my next Valuable Tip: don’t just use white spray paint, use spray-on Appliance Enamel, found with the spray paints at hardware or DIY stores. It’s perfect — stain resistant, glossy, very white, quick drying, and rust proof.  It was miraculous to watch a metallic surface become pure white, shiny, and even in just 2-3 coats. I couldn’t stop using the stuff — the cats were lucky they didn’t end up slick and white.  Don’t forget to mask the outside with some tape before spraying.  If you want to obliterate the product labeling on the outside of your tin, use regular indoor-outdoor spray paint for that — I’ve been doing that after spraying the inside (mask it so that slick white surface isn’t contaminated).

Next tip, about indented lids: if you have an embossed tin lid, your mixing surface will have dents that cause color mixtures to pool.  If this bothers you, start by filling these dents on the inside of the lid with a waterproof product.  I use a modeling product called Apoxie Sculpt.  Just follow the instructions; you can smooth it out with a wet fingertip and then sand when dry.  Polymer clay would work as well, but needs to be oven-cured.  Remember to do your infilling before using the Appliance enamel.  This adds a level of complication to the project, both because of having to do the leveling and procuring the product, but I know your ingenuity is up to it.  If not, just forget it and find a non-embossed tin — they’re out there, but not Altoids, I don’t think — or, use the embossed lid anyway.  It’s not the end of the world. (The photo on the right, below, shows an embossed lid box filled and awaiting enameling, the other box is complete; it’s the rust-colored Altoids gum box above — you can see that the indentations of the lettering have been filled and the lid now has a smooth mixing surface).

Where to put the paints. Since I don’t wear contacts lenses and don’t have access to old lens cups, I was going to make my own half-pans with polymer clay to hold the paints, but I found I didn’t have the patience to make as many as I would need.  Using a solid pad of clay and making paint depressions in it is a good solution, but not for me: I wanted to be able to change out individual colors.  So I went for purpose-made plastic watercolor pans and half-pans, which wedge snugly into mint tins in various combinations.  Unfortunately, I found that individual empty pans are not easy to find, currently.  Jerry’s Artarama has them in their catalog, but as long as I’ve been working on the project, they’ve been out of stock.  I finally found another supplier, Natural Pigments, a cool vendor in Willetts, CA, who specializes in pigments and supplies for people making their own paints.  They have empty pans available for a good price, but frankly their shipping fees are mysteriously high for such lightweight items.  Still, beggars can’t be choosers, and that’s who I’ve been buying from.  Consider that another hot tip, with a caveat (shipping price).

Now you’re ready to configure your pans geometrically in your prepared tin, and select your palette — both tasks similar to scattering rice in front of a vampire: there are those who obsess on these things.  I won’t presume to dispense advice on color choice, but just a warning: the smaller the tin, the fewer your colors, the harder the choice, for most.

Let me finish off by saying that if this is the kind of project that floats your boat, there are many possibilities: different sizes of tins (to accommodate larger and smaller palettes); traveling tins for gouache (non-acrylic gouaches are re-wettable like watercolors and like them can be squeezed into pans and allowed to dry); and gifts for artist friends, with or without the paints (some artists are picky about their color choices).  Now that Altoids has introduced Smalls, there’s a Really Tiny Tin to challenge your minimalist palette selection.  And finally, modern mint-boxes are great, but how cool would vintage metal boxes be?!  I’m thinking Kiwi shoe polish, for one…