Wooden Palette for Oil Painting: Preparing & Maintaining
What kind of painter's palette are yous using? Find out everything you lot need to know most how to prepare, clean and preserve a wooden palette for oil painting.
Have you lot e'er wondered how you should treat a wooden palette before painting with it? And what's the best mode to clean a wooden palette after you're washed painting?
Keep reading, I'll explain how to go on your hand held wooden painting palette in perfect condition for oil painting!
When I outset started painting in oil paints I was instructed to use a pad of dispensable palette paper on which to mix my oil paints. I never really questioned this methodology and continued to utilize palette paper for nearly the next two decades. It seemed to exist a convenient manner to mix pigment and something I just got used to. I always had a small-scale table near my easel and mixed my paints on the table.
With the proliferation of artists sharing their techniques on the internet and via various forms of video I noticed that most professional artists used a hand held wooden palette. Yous know, that old looking kind of painter's palette that has about go the cliché class of clip-art that means "art".
I thought that maybe giving 1 of these wooden painter'south palettes was worth a endeavor. On my side by side trip to the art shop while I was picking up some stretcher bars I ended upward buying a wooden palette for around $viii. It was an oval style palette measuring almost 14 inches across the longest dimension. The wood felt mostly raw and if was prepared in anyhow past the manufacturer information technology didn't announced to be prepared in any durable way. I read upwardly on some various ways to set up a wooden palette for paint mixing and got to work. More near that in a moment.
The Trouble With Palette Paper
Besides beingness a wee bit wasteful, relying on dispensable palette newspaper has some disadvantages especially when compared to a wooden palette. For starters you can't comfortably hold a pad of palette newspaper. Information technology has to lay flat on a table. This ways you'll constantly take to turn abroad from your painting to mix your colors and reload your paint brushes. That turning move, although seems curt in fourth dimension, volition consume massive amounts of time over the course of say ane yr. You lose hours of bodily painting time having to turn and reach. A wooden painter's palette brings all your paints right to your hands. It moves where you lot get!
In one case y'all become used to a wooden palette using palette paper gets really annoying. Having colors right near my brushes saves so much time and has go so much more comfortable!
Preparing a Wooden Palette for Painting
Yous can use a raw, untreated wooden palette for painting but you won't like it very much. The oils from your oil paints will seep into the wood and dry your paints out. It volition as well be harder to scoop up the paint blobs with your palette knife. This would get ameliorate with time as the woods soaks upward the linseed oil from your paints and builds upwards its own layer of a pseudo-varnish, patina-like sort of cease.
I recommend preparing your new, untreated wooden palette before yous get-go mixing paint on information technology. There'south 2 full general routes you can take:
- Difficult Varnish Handling
- Oil Treatment
I've tried preparing a wooden palette using both methods and although I recall the linseed oil handling is far superior I'll encompass both techniques.
Hard Varnish Treatment of Wooden Palette
Any varnish type of material that will not conflict with your oil paints will suffice. Note that this must be a varnish that will not dissolve with your painting mediums or solvents as well. Woods lacquer, which tin can exist found in any hardware store is a fast and inexpensive way to seal your wooden palette. Note that lacquer contains extremely noxious fumes and should be used in an extremely well ventilated area.
Apply lacquer to your wooden painter'due south palette with a castor in an extremely light layer. Permit it dry out for a few hours and add an boosted glaze. In between coats you tin sand out any bumps that may grade or become apparent. Two or 3 coats will give y'all an ultra-smooth palette that can be used to mix oil paints in 24 hours or less. Your palette volition look like a fresh ice skating rink; my is it shiny!
Please note that although the lacquer has stale information technology has not changed it'southward chemic country similar dried paint or dried oil will. The lacquered surface can be re-wetted with lacquer thinner. Don't use lacquer thinner to make clean your wooden palette if information technology has been prepared with lacquer; rather use mineral spirits or your regular painting solvent of choice to clean your palette. Lacquer thinner will remove your lacquered finish. Yikes…all that hard piece of work right down the bleed!
Oil Handling of Wooden Palette (preferred)
Treating your brand new wooden palette with oil is my preferred method for preparing it. While this method takes longer to get your artist's palette ready I think information technology's well worth the look. To prepare the raw wood of the palette y'all'll need some boiled linseed oil, the cheap kind you lot can find at whatever hardware store in the metallic quart or gallon can.
Lightly sand the palette's surface to remove whatsoever bumps and to open up the wood grain; this will make it absorb the oils more efficiently. Dip a rag into the boiled linseed oil and wipe the oil completely over the top of the palette's surface (the surface you'll be using for oil paint mixing). Let the oil soak into the woods for 30-60 minutes. Then use a clean rag and wipe off all excess linseed oil from the palette.
After letting the wood palette dry overnight you can echo this process of lightly sanding (not too much now), reapplying boiled linseed oil, and wiping off the excess oil. 3 coats will take you three days to consummate but the terminate on the palette is astonishing. You'll have a cute looking palette that most importantly works actually well. The stale linseed oil will preclude your oil paints from absorbing into the raw wood different when the palette was new and untreated.
Varnish vs. Oil
Although the varnish method of preparing a wooden palette takes far less time I find its surface to be a trivial flake difficult for my gustatory modality. I similar the soft feel that the palette treated with boiled linseed oil has to offer. One time dried the linseed oil is quite resistant to almost solvents…even lacquer thinner.
How To Make clean a Wooden Palette
The underground to keeping whatever palette clean is not to let pigment dry out on it. Fortunately oil paints accept quite some fourth dimension to really harden up then even if left overnight yous won't take too hard of a fourth dimension removing most of the paint.
Here's how I clean my wooden palette afterward painting:
- I scrape off equally much paint equally I can with the side of my palette knife.
- Side by side I apply a baby wipe or two to remove any paint residue that has been left. It's amazing how good infant wipes are at picking upwardly oil pigment! They have become my secret cleanup weapon!
- Finally I use a paper towel or clean rag to wipe off whatever residue that the baby wipes have left on the wooden palette.
In one case in a neat while I will use some mineral spirits on the palette if I feel that there is some newly stale paint that is being stubborn.
Caring For Your Wooden Palette
Bated from the cleaning instructions described to a higher place your newly treated wooden palette should exist good for many years. The palette volition slowly attain a painted patina but this in my opinion makes the palette work even meliorate. Yous'll begin to see a hazy version of where you put each color of pigment. It actually helps you stay consistent with your palette'southward setup. Information technology also looks really cool, like you're an old master painting wizard!
Avoid scraping downward your wooden palette with anything sharp. I cannot stress this enough. The side of your palette knife is as precipitous as you should allow. You lot'll hear so many artists talking near how they use a razor or a window scraper to remove paint from their palettes. This method of cleaning a palette works well on a glass palette but is disastrous on a hand held wooden palette. Don't exist tempted. You'll slice through your palette'due south finish, nick the wood and create annoying slices and chips in your palette. At present you take a palette that used to be smooth and now it isn't.
A while dorsum I put together a video depicting the steps involved when treating a wooden palette with boiled linseed oil.
Hopefully I've inspired you to at least endeavour a handheld wooden palette for a couple of paintings. Sometimes old habits die hard only when they do sometimes we are much ameliorate off 🙂
Source: https://helloartsy.com/wooden-palette/
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