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Hang on Studio Wall
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Peter Loft

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Posted
Took advice from your goodselves and put my acrylics in a deep plate and happily painted a rose under sunny ,dry warm conditions. The paint kept drying out!!! How do i keep it workable??? Cheers peterallan.

Sylvia Evans

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Use a small amount at a time, acrylics do dry very quickly, a small water spray to keep them maliable .I also think there is a retarder you can use. Otherwise use something like watercolour for outside work.
With Sarah, Phil, Ellen, Rose the dentist, and the granddaughter whose name I forget.

Robert Jones, Napa

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I still have one of the earliest bottles of Cryla retarder (he said proudly) - still around half full, because I found spraying with water just as effective; then moved on to the stay-wet palette; mine is a Masterson's, but there are several others. If funds run to it, buy the biggest size or use the Erebus version - I like the Masterson's palette because I have limited space for accessories, and I can put the lid on it and put it away more easily. If you're not going to be using it for a while, take the membrane out, and preferably the sponge too, and dry the interior - or you will get black mould, which destroys the sponge and makes any paint left in it unusuable. I switch between oil, acrylic and watercolour and sometimes leave the stay-wet palette for as long as a month unused - in that time, you can almost guarantee mould growth, especially in a damp property (every building on the Isle of Wight is damp, I think: it's that kind of place..).

Keith Orange

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Posted
Occasionally spray water on the paints laid out on the palette, using a spray bottle like this: http://www.jacksonsart.com/p13960/Diffuser_:_100ml_empty_clear_plastic_spray_bottle/product_info.html Spray helps to keep the individual heaps of colour wet, but any mixes in the centre of the palette still dry out quickly. To slow down the drying time on the painting surface, I think it's better to use a primed MDF board or canvas rather than paper.

Edited
by keora

Amanda Bates

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Posted
I painted outside with acrylics for the first time in ages earlier this month. (It was from the top of a multistorey car park; this post contains my friend's painting as well as mine: https://artikinesis.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/connecting-with-places-where-art-is-a-stranger/ ). I used a knife and - with the occasional dip into a jar of water to keep the paint from drying on the knife itself - it actually worked quite well. Of course, there is more paint involved with knife painting and it sort of kept itself wet enough on the melamine palette. The paint was mostly Liquitex Heavy Body. I didn't put huge amounts out and I worked quickly. The painting isn't brilliant but as a proof of concept or method, I was quite pleased.