Magazine Clippings Book for Color Palette Inspiration

Why I traded endless saved photos for a glue stick and old magazines

I'm a collector of inspiration. I always have been. As I go through my day, I snap photos of anything that catches my eye. I have mood boards on more platforms than I'd like to admit.

So when I started taking color more seriously in my painting, you'd think I'd have had plenty to work with. And I did. The problem was that it was everywhere. Hundreds of saved images, scattered across apps and folders, and whenever I actually needed a color palette idea, I couldn't find the one I was thinking of. What should have been inspiring had become overwhelming.

How My Color Inspiration Book Began

The answer turned up by accident. One day I was flipping through a stack of old magazines, ready to throw them out, when I stopped and thought: why not keep just the pages I really love?

So I tore out a few favorites and stuck them into a book. That was the beginning of my Color Inspiration Book.

How I Use My Color Inspiration Book

The idea is simple. I glue down an image that speaks to me. Then I try to extract the color palette. Sometimes I mix acrylic paint swatches; sometimes watercolors; sometimes I use small scraps of colored paper cut from other magazine pages. Either way, the goal is the same: to distill the image down to a color palette I can actually use in my paintings.

What surprises me every time is that the palette I end up with never quite matches the original. Somewhere between the magazine page and my paint, the colors shift. They become warmer, or softer, or bolder, and turn into something that feels like my own. The clipping is just the starting point.

Why I love it

I really enjoy the process of breaking an image down and trying to recreate its colors with the physical acrylic paints I have on hand. It forces me to look closely and think about why was it attractive to me in the first place. Mixing it myself teaches me far more than saving a picture ever did.

And I love that it's all analog. No scrolling, no searching through folders. Every palette I've explored is right there in one book, ready to flip through whenever I start a new painting.

How to Start Your Own Color Inspiration Book

You don't need anything fancy. Grab a sketchbook, a glue stick, and a few magazines you were going to recycle anyway. Pick one image that makes you feel something, stick it in, and try to capture its colors on the opposite page. Don't worry about getting it exactly right. The differences are where your own palette starts to show.

In my case I did recycle an old sketchbook full of drawings I did not like any more. You can see the drawings underneath the magazine clippings.

When my book isn't with me, I use the digital version I made: Image to Palette on My Colour Taste. It pulls the color palette out of any photo, free and right in your browser. It's a quick way to try a palette before I mix it in paint.

Happy creating!