What kind of palette do you use?

[Bluestocking]

I've just started using WMOs and love everything about them. With traditional oils, I used a melamine palette and cleaned it with Turpenoid. With WMOs, I have used the same palette, covered with butcher's paper - but I would like to find a method that doesn't contribute to the local landfill. I prefer to hold my palette when I work, so I'd like to find something with a thumb hole.

What kind of palette do you use with WMOs? What works and what doesn't work for you? How do you clean your palette?

Thanks for input and advice~
Peace,
Regina

[cat1lady]

I have a piece of glass that was once a computer anti-glare screen. For my pochade box I use the disposable ones but I do have a piece of plexiglass that I sometimes use.
I wondered about wood, can you use water to clean it off?

[Bluestocking]

I think wood will eventually warp if I clean it with water, which is why I've been covering the old melamine top wood palette with the butcher's paper. Maybe I'm wrong?

[DAK723]

I have a nice thick wood palette that seems to have been coated with shellac or polyurethane varnish. Just adding a coat of some varnish might be all you need.

Don

[greywolf-art]

I use transparent perspex palettes, they are very easy to clean after use and have the advantage that being transparent you can hold the palette over your painting to check the colour you just mixed

[Bluestocking]

see msg below

[Bluestocking]

Greywolf, what do you use to clean your palette? I have used rubbing alcohol to clean acrylics -- does this also work with the WSOs on your perspex palette (which, I think, is the same as plexiglass or acrylic?) or is there something better?

Cat1lady, you mentioned using a plexiglass palette - how do you clean yours?

I tried cleaning the WSOs from my melamine-topped palette with soap and water, and it seemed to require an awful lot of both. In the field, this would be impossible... Perhaps a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and a rag would work more effectively?

Sorry for the rather elementary questions. Thank you, everyone, for your generous advice and input!

Peace,
Regina

[greywolf-art]

Theres no need for solvents really, just wipe the paint off with a rag at the end of the session (don't forget oil paint stays wet a lot longer than acrylic so can usually be removed from a smooth palette very easily)

If any of the paint is a bit stubborn coming off, a touch of linseed oil rubbed in when you get home should work well in removing the remainder (just wash the loosened paint off with soap and water)

And yes I believe the American name for perspex is plexiglas :)

[Ken Nielsen]

I use my traditional oils palette now that I no longer use traditional oils. I take it out to a grassy area where I have a garden hose outside and blast it with water to clean it. That pulverizes the paint into a fine spray which finely settles into the grassy area and is absorbed into the wild grass. I spray it into covering such a large area (2 acres) that there is negligible impact on the environment.

[Bluestocking]

Ken, your flowers must be particularly colourful!