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So I am about to take my first steps into working with a wet palette. Lately I've been thinning with Flow-Aid rather than water, and have been really digging it. It occured to me to just fill the Wet Palette with Flow-Aid.

Has anyone tried this? Is there any way this could backfire on me? It's a P3 wet Palette. Could the Flow-Aid react with the foam?

I dont see why you would. It seems like a waste of flow aid.

After a while, the flow aid solution would start to separate in the sponge and you'd end up with a complete mess (and it simply won't work the same way water does in a wet palette.)

Have you tried it?

This will not work, for two reasons.

First, It will make your paint bleed everywhere overnight. If you fill your wet palette with water, do a little blob of paint, dilute it with flow enhancer, and leave it for the night, you'll come back to it taking up 3x the space on the wet palette. If you have all flow enhancer instead of water, your paint will spread across the whole wet palette

The reason is... this is the job of flow enhancers.. to take away the surface tension of your paint (which is what makes them stay together as a blob) so that they flow better

Second -- the ratio of water to additive in a flow enhancer is very important, as the additive severely reduces the ability of your paint to adhere to surfaces. Unlike mediums, the ratio of water in a flow enhancer is very high (as I mentioned in the other post, 95% for liquitex) -- which means that as the water in your flow enhancer evaporates, the flow enhancer becomes more and more concentrated, and that just won't work, because then, none of your paint will stick.

But don't take my word for it; give it a shot... it's not like flow enhancer is expensive

Very handy info, and all makes perfect sense. Didn't know about the adhesion issue with the flow-aid, and I'm really glad I do now, thanks!

 Talys wrote:
the additive severely reduces the ability of your paint to adhere to surfaces.

Is this also the case with Airbrush Flow Enhancer?