Messing about.

You'd never know such a well-presented painting with those subtle tonal qualities would have come from the pallets on the left. The colours are there for the mixes, but what a mess! Have a great time, Marjorie.

I don't know if oil paints can be stored in a stay-wet palette, because although I've got the palette I've never used it for oil; as I use lead white, my oil paintings normally dry quite fast, so the paint on the palette gets a bit beyond use in a day or two; I do then find myself scraping carefully around the still usable colour (i.e. the slow dryers: the cadmiums, Yellow Lake, Titanium White) to remove the half-dry paint, which is really no good to use again even if you mash oil into it with a palette knife.  I console myself with the thought that the paint you've REALLY wasted is all that stuff left untouched in the tube.... but I do not like wasted paint; if I knew of a safe way to keep it going, I'd use it.  But the only suggestion I've ever read to keep paint workable is to leave a bit of clove oil next to the palette, or in a closed palette box, soaked into a piece of cotton-wool: this, however, is a very bad idea - because the paint might then never dry at all, or fail to dry properly. So - don't do that: and steel yourself to accept a bit of waste.  I know it hurts! By the way, if you think your paint is expensive = the Supreme Paint Co has announced that it has obtained a quantity of genuine vermilion oil paint, available at £93.00 per tube:  you certainly wouldn't want to be wasting that....  I'm tempted, but I have a very limited requirement for vermilion, and generally speaking, Cadmium Red Light or Pyrrole Red fulfills the requirements I do have.  I'd love to try it, though: somebody stop me!!!

Saw that - the lapis, I mean; well, tell you what - if they commission me to paint the Virgin Mary in Westminster Cathedral, I'll fork out for a tube; otherwise, my eternal thanks to M. Guimet, I think it was, who synthesized Ultramarine all those years ago.  I hope he got a medal, because he deserved one. I suppose these prices aren't really so wild when you consider what you're getting: I use Cremnitz White, which is expensive; Cobalt Blue; Manganese Blue; and I'm intending to lay hands on some real Naples Yellow in the fullness of time.  I won't say I'm not bothered about the cost, because obviously I am, but then I think what some people spend on their motorbikes, classic cars, football season tickets, Lucky the dog, who wasn't lucky from the kick-off and costs enough in vet fees to keep a geriatric ward ticking over nicely - it's all relative.   I do understand it's the waste that gets under your skin and itches there, not the cost - for me, the cost does cause a bit of a pang, but then I'm a tight-fisted old wotsit.  Lovable, obviously, but mean as tongs.....