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Unlike most people who seem to make their own wet palettes and get great results, I bought a Masterson sta-wet handy palette. I have seen a difference in paint drying times but maybe I get 5-10 minutes extra to work with the paints, I looked on some painting forums but they were mostly traditional painting on paper artisty forums. So I thought I would get tips from people who use them for the same things I do, followed the tips in the little leaflet it came with but I cant see any differences.

Thanks in advance.

5-10 extra minutes?

I use Reynolds standard parchment paper on a "Sham-Wow" towel and my paints last for weeks if I put the lid on once I'm done painting... totally serious.

The only drawback to using the Sham-Wow is that it will literally stay moist so long that it will get gross and mildewy if you don't wash them once in a while.

Yes I have heard of people getting the paint to last for weeks before, that is what is so baffling about the poor performance I am getting but I just read something about the sponge getting cold water and the paper getting hot, I will give that a blast.

I dunno. If paint drying out on a wet pallet is a problem then perhaps you're taking too much out of the pot?

hrm - you're still thinning your paints right?

I dunno, I get plenty of time to work with mine, but I also don't put a ton of paint on the palette. My 'time to work' is more limited by running out of paint

Are you properly soaking both the sponge and the paper for quite a while? It says 15 minutes but I tend to set em both in water and forget about em for a good while. Then I drain the water out but not 100%, I still leave it good and soppy. It'll diffuse the first few paints a little at the edges but not really that badly and you need to thin them anyways.

Anyways, I dunno, that's all I can think of off hand.

Did you boil the paper first? The wet palettes you get in art supply shops use a paper that has to be heated to make it porous; I usually submerge mine in water and microwave it in a Pyrex dish for about 10 minutes.

merzbau wrote:
Did you boil the paper first? The wet palettes you get in art supply shops use a paper that has to be heated to make it porous; I usually submerge mine in water and microwave it in a Pyrex dish for about 10 minutes.

The Masterson paper doesn't need to be boiled.

Masterson Sta-Wet Palette Instructions

I do not know how to quote a few people without making a big wall of text so I wont. However, I will just answer the few questions in one sentence. I did boil the paper in the microwave but it was folded in half as I did not have a big enough dish, not sure if that will make a difference. On the Masterson website instructions it does not say to boil it but the little leaflet in the package it came in did.