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Sorry for this newb question. What's the best way to mix paint in a palette? I'm using vallejo droppers and I have a small dropper for water. But once I put the proper proportions of paint and water into the palette, what should I use to mix with? I've been seeing people say that you shouldn't mix with your brush. Any suggestions?

I use my brush. What else ?

I use the back of my brush. I would not really recommend the bristles as you can get excited and get paint in the ferule.

If using a flat palette, do not drop the water on the paint. Drop it to one side, then use the brush to pick up paint into a third spot, then water and so on. You then don't need to be so careful with the quantities you take from the pot or bottle.

I use this technique with a wet palette and it gives a lot more control with consistency, which is good when highlighting and blending.

 darefsky wrote:
I use the back of my brush. I would not really recommend the bristles as you can get excited and get paint in the ferule.

When you say "back of the brush" do you mean the handle of the brush? Sorry to be so specific, I just really want to make sure I understand what you mean.

 bowloflostcells wrote:

 darefsky wrote:
I use the back of my brush. I would not really recommend the bristles as you can get excited and get paint in the ferule.

When you say "back of the brush" do you mean the handle of the brush? Sorry to be so specific, I just really want to make sure I understand what you mean.

Yep, I meant the handle. Just make sure you wipe it off or you wind up with paint all over your hands...

winterdyne wrote:
If using a flat palette, do not drop the water on the paint. Drop it to one side, then use the brush to pick up paint into a third spot, then water and so on. You then don't need to be so careful with the quantities you take from the pot or bottle.

This helped me greatly when I was having trouble keeping the right consistency on my old plastic palette. Having two pools close together allowed me to pull from either easily, adjusting my mix on the fly. This meant I could counter evaporation as it happened, but had immediate recourse if I overdid it with the water (just pull in more paint), which was liable to happen. Nowadays I tend to just add water by the brushload (still, after pulling paint from the "main reserve" off into a second, thinned pool), but I've developed a much better feel for thinning, by now.

Well here's the problem I always run into when I mix with the brush. I usually work with a very small amount of paint, like 6-8 drops and some water. If I don't stir the paint up enough, it will be streaky because the paints haven't mixed properly or aren't diluted evenly enough. But if I keep mixing, now my brush is completely saturated with paint, and half the paint in the palette well is gone. Even if I try to squeeze the paint out of the brush back into the well, the paint is way up high in the brush now.

I know this sounds like such a newbie question, so I was wondering how you all mixed your paint, and if there was a better way than what I was doing.

You can use your drybrush or a throw away brush.

If you use small portions it should be easy to mix and thin your paint with your good brush. Just don't let the paint go more than halfway up the bristle.

I use something very similar to the thing at the top of this picture. Mine was from a nail scissors set too. The different sized ends lets you choose how much water or paint to shunt around and so on. No damage to the brush, better control and you probably have one lying around.

6-8 drops is small? Also, what sort of monster brush are you using that can suck up that much paint? I usually only work with one or two drops of paint at a time and I don't lose nearly that much, proportionally, even when using a moderately large-bellied size 1brush...

On the off chance that I am working with more, I'll sometimes give a quick mix with the handle of my brush, but I usually just use the bristles (with a degree of care, of course). After a gentle twirl on the palette to deposit as much of the mix back as I can, I just rinse off and get to work. Since the paint is dilute and still entirely wet, everything rinses right out with a few swishes in the water cup, even if the brush was horribly overloaded - there's no time to dry, so it doesn't gunk up the ferrule or splay the bristles, no matter how high up it was sucked. The loss of paint is really pretty minimal and basic motor function seems sufficient to keep me from wrecking my brushes, so I don't see the need for a specialized tool.