Stay Wet Palette - DIY

I'm new to the forum so someone may have already suggested this but I use plastic takeaway containers with four layers of kitchen paper and one of grease proof paper.  To stop the paint "sweating" once the lid is o, I cut a small hole in one corner of the lid.  Works a treat for me.

I  had a lovely friend and he did something similar and yes it worked well. .  It’s something I’ve never needed I just use a throw away palette and work quite quickly.  I’m sure your method would be brilliant for outdoor painting.   Welcome to the forum Alison. 

I never have and still don’t understand the need for these things. Nor can I relate to the oft-heard complaint or caution about acrylics drying too quickly. Perhaps, like Michael, it’s something to do with the way I work, but I’m usually using a hairdryer (or recently putting the work out in the sun) to speed up the drying. I dollop—no thoughts about quantity needed for this session—the colours I want onto one of the cheap plastic palettes I’ve had for years; I typically work for 4 to 5 hours and at the end I cover the palettes with a couple of wet rather than damp dishcloths and put them inside a bin bag. I’ve used such paint for two weeks or more with no—to me—noticeable difficulty. I’ve had paint go mouldy—hookers green particularly—but the paint wasn’t at all dry; I could have removed the mould and carried on using it.

I don’t use acrylics very much these days, they just can’t compare with oil paint in so many ways… although I accept that they are popular - mainly down to the smell of the oils and turps etc associated with oils I would suggest, plus the cleaning up process. But when I do use acrylics, like Sylvia, I use a throw away palette and my style of painting is to work rapidly, never had any issues with the paint drying out.

If you work rapidly - and with thick paint - it's unlikely that (in this country anyway) the paint will dry out on you.  For those who use acrylic more fluidly, however, drying out can be a problem.  Especially if you're preparing a very thin glaze - you complete half of it, go back to the conventional palette, and the paint has already dried.   Plus, not everyone DOES work rapidly - partly from habit, and partly because I want to stop and have a think, partly from getting too tired to continue, I do tend to have quite long gaps between painting sessions: might be a few hours, might be several days.  Paint will certainly dry overnight if you're not using a stay-wet palette, or employing other means of keeping it moist. In the days before Stay-wets existed, I'd use various means to keep the paint usable - a retarder mixed with it helped: on the other hand, that kept the paint on the board too wet for too long (OK for blending, but I'd do that only if I wanted an acrylic to look like an oil).  I've also used damp cloths, putting a clingfilm wrap over the palette and putting the whole thing in the 'fridge.....  But that's messy, inconvenient, and a faff.  A stay-wet palette enables me to save the paint for a week or so; I can put the lid on, put the palette away, and forget about it until I'm ready to go back to the painting.  The snag with the majority of Stay-wet palettes is that they're too small for studio use, are fairly expensive, and you could always make your own at less cost, but probably less functionality as well. Once you start asking what painters "need", you enter murky territory.  Do we "need" a full battery of colours; dozens of brushes; that one "special" sable for watercolourists; turps; Liquin; retarders; flow improvers; granulating medium; masking fluid (yuck!); dividers; ruling pens; putty rubbers; viewfinders; those super-duper pencil sharpeners?  Do we even "need" pens, when you can pull a twig out of a bush and use that.... and how about colour shapers?    Probably not ... and yet, most of use at least some of those things; I daresay - from my own experience - that we've collected more colours than we ever use; and that many of us, myself included, collect brushes as if they're likely to go out of fashion: I can rarely resist a good-looking, well-made brush (still trying to find a use for the dagger, mind).  We don't really need three quarters of this stuff, but - it just eases the process a bit; and I've neither time nor inclination to re-invent the wheel - so I've got a stay-wet palette - the Masterson brand - which does have its problems but has served me pretty well. Alan widens the question considerably by comparing acrylics with oils; it may be that some do prefer acrylic because of the ease of clear-up, and particularly because of the fumes from Turpentine and its equivalents - I've never noticed much of a smell from oil itself.  But then, you don't have to use Turps or other solvents at all; nor yet Liquin, for whose pervasive honk I have a particular dislike.  I, however, use acrylic not because of any convenience - but because it just does different things.  Oil paint is wonderful stuff, and I love using it (when I get the chance!)  Having played about with portraiture lately, I found oil paint immeasurably easier to use than acrylic, in that you can get a pretty good result at a much earlier stage: acrylic paintings (mine, anyway) seem to go through a stage of incredible hideousness  before one pulls them around ... though that also makes them interesting to do; oils are forgiving, the colours tend to be truer to nature; they're more manipulable.  I don't believe however that it's helpful to make direct comparisons between them and acrylic, any more that it would make much sense to compare oil with watercolour: we don't use them for the same reasons or ends. So yes, I think Alan might have some trouble (probably not much!) producing acrylic paintings to rival his oils - but then, I don't think he should be trying to, necessarily; or that people should use acrylic because they think it's "easier" than oil (it isn't!), or simpler to clean up (which it certainly is).  I hope this makes some sense - one can never be sure....  As Lord Montgomery of Alamein said - or rather squeaked in that wonderful accent of his which could suddenly take off and hit the soprano register - "Every general is different!".  So are painters, but more so - so are painting media - value the difference; judge the artists and use the media for their appropriate qualities - there's a video on YouTube entitled "How to make your acrylics look like oils" - NO!  Make your acrylics look like acrylics, and your oils look like oils!

I use acrylic colour glazes quite a lot and as my subject matter is predominantly landscape, the colours I need are limited. Glazes mixed up in plastic pots—the sort you get with coleslaw, hummus etc.—keep well. The pots aren’t 100% airtight but they are good enough to keep the glaze fresh for weeks. And I can also feel pompously self-satisfied that I’m finding a use for what would otherwise be a single-use plastic.

Well, of course you can - I use ice-cream cartons to hold just the right amount of water for an acrylic or watercolour, and they will wear out so (provided I remember to stamp on them) so I keep having to buy more ice-cream...... I don't do too badly on the recycling front - I have a brush-holder made from a bit of double-glazing fitments, a mahl stick made from a bamboo cane topped with a bit of sponge held in place with a bit of aged pyjama, and tied together with an old shoe-lace, holders for dried brushes which once held litre bottles of Scotch (actually, I'm running out of those: damn!  Must buy more Scotch); holders for solvent made out of a combination of instant milk tin (no idea where that came from: I'd never even think of drinking instant milk) with a smaller can that held John West salmon in the bottom to collect the sludge: don't use it now I've given up on solvents (almost entirely).  If I looked around, I'm sure I could find other make-do-and-mend solutions, but - now I'm getting older, I'm developing a taste for purpose-made accoutrements.  I have my eye on a proper mahl stick; mahogany palette; studio easel to complement the sketching easel I've used for over 50 years - price is a problem, of course, but you mustn't hesitate to send generous financial gifts my way - after all: it's for ART, innit?