Used a wet palette for the first time

[Sholto]

After seeing my colours dry to useless on my plastic palette once too often, I decided to make a wet palette last night.

(EDIT: What is a wet palette? See the bottom of this post)

I found a plastic box with a lid that someone from Ebay had packaged some Fire Warriors in long ago. It is about half the size of an Ipad, and I think I have seen them selling in packs of ten in pound shops.

I put some kitchen paper in the bottom (four sheets, if you're counting) and soaked it. Then I cut out a rectangle of baking paper and put that on top. Here is the result, just after I started using it while painting Misaki:-

Initial thoughts: very impressed. I wound up with loads of colour mixes as I painted, and when I went to a tiny patch of colour I had mixed an hour or two before, it was still wet and usable. That drop of black was there for three and a half hours, and never even started to dry out.

It makes fixing mistakes, or redoing bits you missed, a walk in the park, as the exact colours you need are still right there, ready to use, instead of dried and cracked on a plastic palette.

Pros: cheap (free, as I had everything I needed lying around). I can replace the baking paper sheet whenever I need to. Plus, it lets me paint without worrying about colours drying out, and you have no idea how handy that is until you try it

Cons: some small areas of the baking paper did not make full contact with the wet kitchen towel underneath, and the paint did dry out there. I only saw once such spot, so maybe I will cut the baking paper a little smaller next time to make sure it lies flat.

Very dilute mixes of paint (ie. lots of water added to thin them) will run all over the place. Be careful how much water you add to thin your paints (and you still need to thin your paints - the wet palette does not change that).

What is a wet palette? A palette that keeps your paints supplied with a steady flow of moisture to replace the moisture they lose to evaporation. The baking paper sits on top of a reservoir of water, and the properties of the baking paper allow the water underneath to wick up to the paint above. Water passes through, but the paint does not, so the paint stays where you put it and does not dry out. You need to keep the reservoir underneath wet at all times, of course. You can use paper or a sponge for this purpose. The palette also needs a lid, otherwise the reservoir will dry out quickly. With a lid, paints stay wet and usable for a few days.

Baking paper has many names - aka greaseproof paper and oven sheet.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Sholto

[thatnicguy]

This is very interesting champ, thanks for the detailed run down, I'd never heard of it before!

[Rhaksha]

I use a wet palette all the time now. They are very useful as you can easily mix paints to get a full range of blends very easily, and you can preserve that special colour you just mixed for a lot longer (even overnight)

The box I use is a 'Very Useful Box' from Rymans (a local stationers) which seems to have been designed for use as a pencil case.

Rhaksha

[Mako]

I have an A4 size artists wet palette, i can mix up every colour and shade I need for a mini on it if I'm careful, and use it for well over a week by storing it in the fridge. The only thing to watch is that you don't overload it with water, as paints can separate and run all over the place if its too wet.

[Manicmac]

Thanks for sharing that! I had never heard of a wet palette, but it makes sense and I will be trying this on the next mini I paint.

[Bigkid]

Seems so simply now you mention it!

No more frantically dipping me brush in water and stirring into the blob of paint, then having to add more paint 'cos the colour changes, then it drying out a bit, then.....

Will definitely be giving it a go in the future.

[Buhallin]

The thing I love about it is that it's disposable. I used to have a good 15 minutes of setup/teardown time whenever I wanted to paint between setting out, mixing, cleaning the palette, etc.

On the bubbles: You can fix these pretty easily by smoothing everything down when you set it up. Make sure you don't end up with air bubbles trapped between your layers of paper towel (I assume that's what you call kitchen paper ), as I find that's a bigger issue than between the paper towel and the parchment paper.

One other trick I picked up is that if you make the parchment paper a bit smaller than your towel pad, you can use the soaked towel to wet your brush to get water for thinning paint. It speeds things up a lot too, and gives you a lot more control over how much water is on your brush when you go to thin the paint.

[Q'iq'el]

I used one for the longest time, but lately I just take a plastic sheet more often than not.

Back when I used to paint GW units with 10~20 models or more, every shade would take eternity to finish and the paint would dry really horribly without one.

But Malifaux minis I paint pretty much one at a time. Not only I use very little paint to begin with, but I often finish the shade before it dries up. In the end, I find it more hassle to set up the wet palette these days.

[Sholto]

@Q'iq'el - interesting. I find that it takes me an age to clean my plastic palette after a painting sesh. In comparison, throwing out the baking sheet/ parchment and putting in another seems like it would save time. Time will tell!

[Q'iq'el]

@Q'iq'el - interesting. I find that it takes me an age to clean my plastic palette after a painting sesh. In comparison, throwing out the baking sheet/ parchment and putting in another seems like it would save time. Time will tell!

Yup, I actually found a very easy to clean plastic palette, that's why I dropped the wet one.

A ~2$ flexible cutting board (about 2mm thick). Very smooth surface, excellent to just squirt paint on and add some water. After the use O just bent it and put it under hot running water - most paint goes away immediately, some spots may require gentle rub with a sponge.

[Mako]

I have a dry one for smaller quicker stuff, but things like freehand detailing (which I do a lot of) are so slow they really benefit from a wet palette.

It all depends on how long you're going to spend on a piece I guess - If I was doing something for a competition I'd probably be carefully working every shade into the next so I'd need hte wet palette, but for everyday stuff its not always necessary.

[Memento Mori]

Tha looks just like my wet palet! I'm a fan, made one a couple of months ago and makes layering and blending so much easier. I'd probally say its progressed my painting as much as using better quality brushes plus to clean you just lay a new strip of parchment, job done!

[Mike3838]

For an alternative to the kitchen paper, (and what I use myself) the foam rectangles that come with Malifaux crew boxes are ideal! They soak up and retain loads of water, for weeks at a time, perhaps more than the paper towels do.

Mike

[Bexley]

Some paints will tend to suck extra water through the paper, though, and get more dilute the longer you paint. I used a wet palette a lot when I'd first heard of them, but nowadays I rarely bother, since I seem to spend about as much time adding more paint to thicken it up to the right consistency as I do adding water to a normal palette to keep the paint properly thinned. Pick your poison, I guess.

For those that still use a "traditional" palette, I'd highly recommend investing in ceramic one. When you're done painting, put it in a bucket of hot water with a small amount of cleaner (Simple Green or glass cleaner work well) and let it soak a while. The paint will come right off when you rinse it. (Some paints, especially metallics, will need a little scrubbing, but if you've left the palette to soak overnight, those should come right off too.)

Better yet: buy more than one. Then if you need to stop painting to clean the palette, you can let it soak while you use the fresh palette, and when that one needs cleaning, rinse off the one that's been soaking and toss the dirty one into the bucket. I actually use three, so that one can air dry while one soaks, as I find that drying off a palette with a towel invariably leaves lint on the palette, which then gets into your paint. With three, I can keep swapping for a clean, dry palette without having to stop painting.

Blick Art carries nice small 7-well "flower" style ones for about ten bucks. You can get watercolorist's palettes with upwards of thirty wells, but they don't tend to be cheap.

Edited July 19, 2011 by Bexley

[ispep]

After minimal success with home made wet palettes, I spent the 15 or so dollars for a Masterson Sta-wet Palette. The working area of the paper is 8.5"x7", the tray itself is slightly larger. A pack of 30 sheets is around 5 bucks at Micheal's. I have been very happy with it. I also have a number of cheap plastic well palettes, and 2 simple 6x9 white ceramic tiles. I love them all, and use each one for different things.

I was looking at a large 12x16 or so ceramic serving tray, but for 30 bucks, I decided I'd just keep an eye out at garage sales and thrift stores.

[IceColdFork]

I paint about as quick as molasses so I started using a wet palette about a year ago and never looked back. My paints would always dry out on me and when trying to re-blend a color I could never it get it exactly the same. Now if I know I am going to need a lot of a color I can just mix up a large batch and keep it for days with out drying up. I built my wet palette a bit differently then the ones I have seen on this thread.

First I used an old 16oz yogurt tub for my water container. I would suggest to use something with a lid to hold in the moisture.

Second I bought a pack of sponges and cut one up to fit in the bottom of my yogurt tub.

Finally I put enough water into the tub so that the sponge is fully saturated and slap down some parchment paper and call it a day.

Edited July 20, 2011 by IceColdFork

[twenty4seven]

I Macgyver'd a wet pallette up last week as well and have saved a ton of paint. Instead of piling up lots of paper I put one of the sheets of foam from the Malifaux starter boxes down with a sheet of waxy paper over that which worked really well. Might save you some paper.