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Keeping the paint fresh
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Posted
Using oils onto the palette and often painting over a few days, how do you keep the oil paint fresh and useable for the next day or days? I would rather use large blobs/mounds of oil paint rather than clean the palette each day apart from the slicks of mixed colours.
I have used clingfilm to cover the whole palette, but are there better ways?
Posted
With regard to acrylics, over 30 years ago, I did buy a Rowney Stay Wet Palette. Although I didn't use it continuously, with several spells of never lifting a brush, it did serve my needs quite adequately - despite its limit size and seemingly flimsy construction. In reality it only started to come apart a couple of years ago. It is still usable but I did treat myself to a Masterson Super Pro Sta-Wet Palette. A bit of an extravagance, as many people get by with a sandwich box, kitchen paper and baking sheets, but it is the bee's knees. Well designed, has a robust construction, seals well, and has a lid that doubles as a mixing tray, I am well pleased with it. The paint does slowly absorb too much water, but that's if it is left closed for many days, if not weeks. It does say you can use it with oils or watercolours, and I can believe it. Will it last 30 years? I suspect I shall never find out unless I get close to being a centenarian!
Posted
Put your oil paint in the freezer. Rather than putting my glass palette in there, I put remaining paint in pill boxes (7day/14day medication containers available from a chemist) before putting it in the freezer. I have had the paint last a couple of weeks like that and it just needs a few minutes at room temperature before use. I have also read of people using a plastic cover over the palette with a couple of drops of clove oil (on a piece of cotton wool). I'm not too keen on the smell it leaves in the studio and haven't had the same success as using the freezer.
Posted
My interest is in preserving oil paint. I often have to leave off painting for weeks at a time and have a mix of particular colour left over which I know I will have great difficulty in repeating.
The object is to exclude air from the paint's surface, so wrapping it in cling film seems to be the way to go. However the clove oil method sounds interesting. Does anyone know how it is supposed to work?
Posted
Clove oil is dangerous stuff - it should never be actually mixed with the paint (because it might never dry out at all), but a little, perhaps on a wad of cotton wool, or a sponge, on a palette you're trying to save from drying out is said to work. I've also heard of people putting film over the paints and putting the palette in the refrigerator .... though much prefer food in mine. I'm not sure that much else is going to work to keep paint workable for weeks at a time - even partially dried paint is a problem to work with (and unpleasant). Much as I hate being mean with paint, I think in your place I'd just not squeeze too much out to start with, and try to use all I had placed on the palette.
As to the problem of mixing paint to match what you've laid down before - yes, that's a problem, because in order to get just the same colour, you have to mix it in just the same proportions, and trial and error can be wasteful. Even so - we get to know what produces the effects we're after, and if in doubt keep a diary - write the mixes you use down, for future reference, giving the proportions as best you can. (Eg, one part magenta to two parts pthalo green: not forgetting that the amount of oil or thinner you use can also affect the resultant mix.)
Posted
For my pallet I have a shallow, square polythene box with a close-fitting lid ( about 1.5 c deep) , I had to cut a sliver off one side of the pallet to get it in but that I think reduces airspace to the minimum - I think I bought it in Hobbycraft . For decent sized blobs of paint I have collected some of those tiny glass jars in which hotels serve marmalade and jam on the breakfast table - useful if you have a blob mixed to a particular colour which would difficult to repeat . Its all about keeping airspace to a minimum .
Stephen Weight
Posted
The benefit of using oil paints against acrylic is their drying time. I only squeeze out smallish blobs onto my palette (apart from white), and top up as I progress through a painting.
I generally, although not always, use the most expensive quality brands, Michael Harding etc, and at £60 a tube, it’s far too expensive to waste loads of it.
It usually stays workable for 3or4 days, adequate time for completion in most cases. I just leave it out in the studio, no cling film or anything, not found it necessary and probably couldn’t be bothered anyway!
Inevitably, there will be remains left on the palette that need to be disposed of, but if you plan things out sensibly, it won’t, or shouldn’t, be much. A bit of waste is inevitable, and certainly nothing to get concerned about.
Posted
Has anyone seen the Montmartre artists in Paris ? They use wonderful traditional wooden palettes , they are always chock full of colour built up into great mounds, lots of it is so obviously aeons old . I haven’t worked out how they actually mix their colours . Possibly they don’t and just use pure colour onto their canvas .in fact those palettes are works of art in their own right .