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I’m new to the whole wet palette thing and have notice that my parchment paper keeps curling up and drying out. Is it something I’m doing wrong like getting rid of too much of the excess water? I live in the UK so it’s not much to do with the environmental conditions. The heating has been on until recently but it’s not usually that warm where I do my painting.

Any help gratefully received!

Mine does as well. I think you're always going to suffer with some of your water evaporating off, at various rates depending on the temperature and humiidity. I just top mine up every so often, usually when I notice one of the corners of the paper starting to curl up.

This might sound daft but are you placing a cover on it when not in use?

I use a diy palette in a sandwich container and it lasts about a month before going mouldy

 Rybrook wrote:
This might sound daft but are you placing a cover on it when not in use?

I use a diy palette in a sandwich container and it lasts about a month before going mouldy

This is what I was gonna say. You have to seal when not in use, if you mean it’s just drying up in the time you make and use it there and then, that’s weird.

I use a little tub (almost like a Tupperware container, but smaller), plastic with an airtight lid for instance..

As mentioned previously, cover when not in use. Other than that, it does dry out over time. Lift off your paper, re-wet the underlying layer, reapply the same paper, problem fixed.

Thanks for all of the replies.

I bought a Frisk wet palette, which is nearly A4 paper sized and comes with some thick paper to use as a base. I put the lid on when not in use and whilst the seal isn’t great there’s usually condensation on the lid when I come back to it.

My main problem is that the parchment curls whilst still mid use. From Bellerophon and shmvo’s comments it might be that I’m being slack with the refills. The palette is normally in use for a couple of hours but starts drying up long before I’m done.

I’ll refill now and be more generous with the water, by not pouring off as much excess.

Also, for the mould problem Rybrook mentioned - a drop or two of washing up liquid in with the water does wonders to stop it going mouldy. I've only recently started doing it and it makes a big difference.

So it appears I was being stingy with the water. I left much more water in the tray than I had been doing and the parchment seemed to not curl up. So simple that I feel dumb for asking! Thanks for the pointers though, I’ll give the washing up liquid a go too, it sounds good for longevity.

Cheers guys!