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I am looking for a little advice on using my wet palette. At the moment I use the Army Painter palette and the paper sheets provided with the kit.
My issue is in how to correctly set up the palette so that it doesn’t thin out my paints to the point of nearly everything becoming a thin glaze within a few minutes of being applied.
I have tried varying amounts of water, I have tried doubling up the sheets of paper, I have tried putting in a paper towel below the paper. Nothing seems to be providing the kind of surface I imagine a wet palette should have (that is to say porous enough to keep the paint wet but without thinning it so much it begins breaking down)
I live in the UK and know that those of you over in the states talk of using baking paper …
Can anybody help me figure this problem out or give me some pointers?
Maybe you got a bad batch of the paper. It’s the only single point of failure I can think of I. The system. It sounds like you have run through various water level tests. Maybe either try the baking paper approach or pick up another brand of wet palette paper. I have a red grass palette that works fine with their paper.
Also what paints are you using?
Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!
Water should be coming up through the paper. Starting from a dry sponge I slowly add water until it’s absorbed enough water that it’s “full” then I put a bit more water on so that there is a little bit of excess round the edge. But not as high as the sponge. Then I put the paper on and smooth it over with the bottom of a paint pot. Seem to work for me.
I do think there are preferences out there for how wet people like their pallet but you should be able to put a blob of paint on the pallet and take from that blob and get your 2 thin coats mix and then spread some of that blob out to get thinner paint and eventually your glaze mix. Sometime I think my pallet isn’t wet enough to get the glaze thinness but you can always add a drop of water to your paint on the wet pallet. Or medium or flow enhancer.
mrFickle wrote: Water should be coming up through the paper. Starting from a dry sponge I slowly add water until it’s absorbed enough water that it’s “full” then I put a bit more water on so that there is a little bit of excess round the edge. But not as high as the sponge. Then I put the paper on and smooth it over with the bottom of a paint pot. Seem to work for me.
I do think there are preferences out there for how wet people like their pallet but you should be able to put a blob of paint on the pallet and take from that blob and get your 2 thin coats mix and then spread some of that blob out to get thinner paint and eventually your glaze mix. Sometime I think my pallet isn’t wet enough to get the glaze thinness but you can always add a drop of water to your paint on the wet pallet. Or medium or flow enhancer.
Gotcha! Thanks for the explanation. Could be I was using too much water and/or allowing too much to get onto the paper. I will give it another go and follow this advice…
mrFickle wrote: Water should be coming up through the paper. Starting from a dry sponge I slowly add water until it’s absorbed enough water that it’s “full” then I put a bit more water on so that there is a little bit of excess round the edge. But not as high as the sponge. Then I put the paper on and smooth it over with the bottom of a paint pot. Seem to work for me.
I do think there are preferences out there for how wet people like their pallet but you should be able to put a blob of paint on the pallet and take from that blob and get your 2 thin coats mix and then spread some of that blob out to get thinner paint and eventually your glaze mix. Sometime I think my pallet isn’t wet enough to get the glaze thinness but you can always add a drop of water to your paint on the wet pallet. Or medium or flow enhancer.
Gotcha! Thanks for the explanation. Could be I was using too much water and/or allowing too much to get onto the paper. I will give it another go and follow this advice…
Hiya I’m painting atm. See the green in the bottom right? My painting surface isn’t quite level so water collects at the bottom. You can the difference between applying paint to an area with water on top of the paper and not. This is an ink so it’s run very quick but it’s the same for paint
Hiya I’m painting atm. See the green in the bottom right? My painting surface isn’t quite level so water collects at the bottom. You can the difference between applying paint to an area with water on top of the paper and not. This is an ink so it’s run very quick but it’s the same for paint
Yes, that thinning on the picture is exactly what I seem to be getting. I am going to try again when I begin on the Terrorgheist I’m building and will report back with the results….
Hopefully I can get the hang of the palette by posting pics on here as I am using it… that is if the issues persist …
I think part of this might be down to my own confusion as to what constitutes normal behaviour of paint on the palette. Hopefully others here on the forum can let me know what they think of how it is performing etc when I post some pics…
The name may be misleading, but the 'wetness' of wet palettes generally needs to be closer to "moist" than "wet". (somewhere between "damp" and "moist")
I disagree with MrFickle's advice on needing excess water pooling at the edges.
I use water spray to moisten my sponge. Only time I soak it is after it comes out of storage and the sponge is hard.
This is a pretty good video on how to set up your wet palette. I personally prefer my wet palette to be drier than the video as I use a lot of mediums to thin my paints.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLcuicvJFKo
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2023/04/30 14:17:09
Eventually the sponge will need replacing I think but you can wash it. What you don’t want is paint in the sponge that reactivates when it gets wet and comes up through the paper.
Ok so I have started using my palette now on this months competition…
So far I have followed the advice on viewing it as a ‘damp palette’ rather than ‘wet’ and, after only moistening the sponge and ensuring the paper doesn’t get wet… well… things have improved!
As you can see… the paint now seems to hold shape and consistency much better…
So, thankyou all, so far the advice has really helped