 Hi there, it's Sandy Olmock and I am going to unbox my House of Hoffman palette today. I am so excited that it's finally here. I've been waiting for it for years, saving for it and paying for it for years. And when you look at their website, you'll find out why it's taken that long. There is a long waiting list for them. They're all handmade individually by Steve Finnelli. So I wanted to honor his work here by unboxing it for you, even though I know there's very few people on my followership who are going to actually ever need to get one. But it is beautiful. And even the packaging, the way he puts it together is lovely and made me feel very special when I opened it up. I didn't fill it right away, by the way, with color because there were some changes that I hadn't put into my brain. So I filmed this quite a while ago and am only now getting to the point where I'm sharing it with you. You may have seen it on Instagram on occasion because I have been painting with it by the time I'm actually recording this voiceover. So it came in a container that looks like a sock. It's sock fabric, feels like a nice stick gym sock. And I am carrying it around in that sock. As I put it in my bag to take out, to do plein air, I put it in there to keep it from getting scratched, that sort of thing. I pretty much know that eventually this is going to turn into an artist palette. It's going to be a mess like everything else I own and it's going to be okay. But right now it feels very precious. So I'm going to put it very carefully in its bag and treat it like gold. But look at all that silver and brass. There's lots of different combinations you can choose from on the website for what you want your palette to be made out of. Comes with instructions, things like, don't put your palette away wet and wipe it down with this cloth provided. So that's what the little thing is that I'm pulling out right now is what they recommend you clean it with. And on the brass portion, my signature. I fought myself so long trying to figure out how to write the perfect signature since it was going to get embossed in my palette. But there you go. Now when I ordered this, I ordered the one with 15 colors in it. You might notice there's 18 holes in it. And that's because Steve emailed and asked if I wanted the thumb hole in it. And I decided since I've had problems with my hands of late that I'm probably not going to be ever holding my palette. It's not the way I ever painted before anyway. So I told him no, just don't put those in, put in more paint wells. And then I got it and I went, oh no, I only had 15 colors in my brain for what I was going to use. So now I had three more to add. So I had to make some choices and then tell myself where to put the colors so that if I change my mind on them, I at least was maybe going to stay in rainbow order. So I started with my yellows, new gambos, Oriolan and yellow ochre. Despite the screaming of Nickel Azo, it did not make the cut. Sorry, Nickel Azo. Next up is my red. So I've brought back Quinn Rose. And then I have Alizarin Crimson, the permanent one, and Thraconoid Scarlet. And then we get to my only brown, which is Transparent Red Oxide. Mix that with some Payne's Blue Gray and it makes a perfect neutral. It also can make a dark brown, depending on the mix you do of the two of them. And then I jumped to the blues. Daily Blue Turquoise first and then Cobalt Blue. I didn't put a purple in here, you may notice, in between the reds and the blues, because my only purple is going to come later. And it's not really going to fit right in that section. And you'll see why. Next up is my two little spots that I think I'm just going to play with and see. Duochrome Cabo Blue is that light blue. And then this green is Cascade Green. Cascade Green, a lot of people in my area use to paint with. And I want to see how it feels to paint with it. Is that a color that I would use normally? We have a lot of green where I live. And maybe that's a color that I should entertain more. There's two other colors in my head that I may switch those two out for at some point. But for now, I want to use them and see how long they justify their existence. Next up is my other greens, Green Gold, Sap Green, and Green Appetite Genuine. That last one in this row is going to be reserved for my Moon Glow. So there's my purple. And I put it down here because this section is kind of for my neutrals and my granulating pigments. So Green Appetite granulates, the Moon Glow granulates. Next up is Lunar Blue, which granulates. And so that's the granulating section. Granulating is texture. Just puts lots of texture into your painting. Then we get to Pains Blue Gray in the middle. And the last one I added was another treat for myself. I wanted, since I had all these extra colors, maybe one real true neutral. So I picked Alvaro's Caliente. So we'll see how that warm gray does in my palette, or if I end up switching that out for something else eventually. Here I am out painting in the wild, holding my own cell phone while I do. Sorry for the jiggliness of everything. But I wanted to test to see that the palette both fit into my Blick easel and fits on the little swing arms that come out and that it doesn't get too heavy. And it worked just great. I'm using the needle brush that I love so much and lots of people ask about. So I will put the link to that in the doobly-doo, along with the other links to supplies, et cetera. And here is the finished painting and the scene I was painting from. You see how many greens we have in Washington? That's why I need so many greens in my palette. Oh, yeah, yeah. This one took me a very long time to finish lots and lots of detail, but it was fun to do, fun to have a new palette to play with. And it's such a beautiful work of art by Steve. Since you've made it this far into this video, I offer you a gift, which is a coupon code. Use the word palette at checkout for an extra 5% off any landscape foundations class. And if one of them happens to be on sale, you get an extra 5% on top of that. So this is not a substitute for that sale. You can always check the sale category on the website to find out what is on sale at the time. Usually six or eight classes a month go on sale. The two classes that are now in the landscape foundations category are watercolor trees one that addresses single trees and watercolor trees two, which addresses entire landscapes full of trees. I have plans for lots more. I want to do water reflections. I want to do moving rivers and waterfalls. I want to do one with oceans. I want to do lots of different elements that you can then put into landscapes in your area in the place that you paint. So check out that category if you're interested in taking one of those classes from me and use the word palette. And I am going to go now I'm going to head out and maybe go paint something. So maybe you will too. I'll see you again soon. Take care. Bye bye.