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I have recently begun using a color palette for color mixing during my painting. However, I'm running into the problem of my paints drying out too quickly on the palette and am wasting more paint than I would like. I have tried watering the paints down, but I can't seem to prevent them from drying quickly without watering the paints down to an almost unusable state. What do you guys suggest?

I use a wet palette for this sort of thing. It can thin the paint out a bit too much if you are not careful, but is usually quite useful. Having a source of clean water in a dropper is useful as well so long as you keep adding water to your dry palette.
<snip - thanks wikipedia >
A wet palette is especially useful with acrylics that dry quickly on a dry palette. A wet palette is a sealable container with a layer of absorbent material (such as tissue paper) that can be soaked with water and a semi-permeable membrane (such as greaseproof paper or baking parchment (silicone paper)) over that. The paint sits on the membrane and is kept wet by osmosis. Wet palettes can be bought, but are easily made.
</snip>

I find that matte medium works better than straight up water for keeping paint fluid but not so thin it is a pain. Then again, I use really cheap paint, so water might work just as well for higher quality color. I just find that the medium keeps the paint from getting crazy runny better.

Crafty/artsy stores, such as Michael's, have wet palette paper (which is what I use). I also use a small disposable Tupperware-type container with a thick kitchen sponge in it to hold water and put the wet palette paper on top of that. If you can't find wet palette paper, parchment paper (which can be found at your local supermarket) will suffice, but doesn't work quite as well. You'll want to experiment with it a bit to get the feel that you like for your paints.

As a note, make sure you soak the paper in water for a bit before you use it, or it won't pass water nearly as well.

A solution someone told me was basically, "You can never
have too much paint. You can have too little, but never
too much."

She stirred medium into her mix with an old brush, and she
did this constantly.

my recipe for a wet pallette -
back half of a Rackham blister (as they are flat), blister sponge, piece of grease proof paper (about 99p from any convenience store for about 3m) and a pipette for adding water. Put the blister sponge in the blister back half, add water, press on grease proof paper and you're away!

bubber wrote:my recipe for a wet pallette -
back half of a Rackham blister (as they are flat), blister sponge, piece of grease proof paper (about 99p from any convenience store for about 3m) and a pipette for adding water. Put the blister sponge in the blister back half, add water, press on grease proof paper and you're away!

That's a solid recipe, but maybe put it in a small airtight plastic box (like a tupperware box) and then you can keep it from drying out and continue to use the same paint between sessions (in case you are using random mixes of colours for highlighting and need a wet mix of paint for accurate comparison, or if you only want to mix up the highlighting paint once).

I assume you are using acrylics in which case there are mediums you can get that extend the drying time of the paint. This can be useful for blending layers as well as your ready mixed paint not drying up. Check art supply shops and online. They may work better with artist's colours than modelling paints.

I use a mixture of Vallejo paints and citadel paints.

If you buy Vallejo Game Color line paints and put them on a wet palette as described above and seal in a plastic container when not being used you have paint that'll last longer than Dick Clark in a cryogenic chamber.

Thanks for the replies. I've purchased the paper for the wet palette and the top of my art supply box is a mini seal case that would make for a perfect palette. I'll try it out this weekend, but it seems like it'll work. Thanks a bunch.