Making a Wet Palette

Since I started painting, I've always used a solid surface to mix my paint on - currently it's a white tile that gets cleaned down every couple of weeks. After hearing consistently about them being better, I watched a few tutorials last night in how to build wet palettes. As it turns out they are rather simple, so I built one.

The idea behind a wet palette is that because of the moisture in the container, the paint will take much longer to dry out thus allowing you to use the same mix multiple times, or to keep adding shades to the same mix to mix progressive highlights, for example.

So, what do you need to make a wet palette? Not a lot, and most can be "borrowed" from a kitchen.

First up, you'll need a plastic "Tupperware" container with as close to an airtight seal as you can get. Some people make their palettes quite thin, but I've gone for a reasonably deep one (with Wight King for scale)

We also need some insides - sponges, tissues and grease proof/baking/wax paper. Oh, and water.

Step 1: Add sponges to the container. This is why I went for a deep container - it's the right size to have sponges and additional layers of tissues.

Step 2: Add tissues. I've got three in here, folded and tucked into the sides providing an even coverage across the sponges.

Step 3: Draw around your container (or lid) on the grease proof paper and cut it to size. I then tested the size to make sure it was a good fit - it's slightly too big, which is fine as that should stop paint getting into the tissues/sponge if the edges are folded up.

Step 4: Remove the grease proof and add water. The amount will be different depending on the size of the pot, but this one took maybe 150ml to get to a stage where the tissue and sponges were soaked and there was a little more water not soaked up. You can see from the picture of the bottom of the container that there is still liquid running around, as there is in the top picture (bottom left of it).

Step 5: The final stage - Add the grease proof back on top of the tissue. This is the surface you will be mixing paint on.

Once you have that, you're done! Just start using it as you would your normal palette and when you are done, just stick the lid on it.

Once I've had a proper play with it for a while, I'll let you know how I get on with it.