[Thanatos]

Being on only my third oil painting I feel like I'm doing a decent job, however somethings really troubling me...

My pallete... It's not exactly organized, I end up using more pallete paper than really needed. Basically what I do is I remix the colors each time I need more paint on my brush. I realize this isn't exactly the best idea in the world, but my technical skills with mixing paint are good at the point where you can't tell that I do that. Mixing colors is a cinch for me.

When I look at how my teacher uses her pallete it's all organized, she has her skin tones, shadow tones, and highlights all neat and everything... I try for that kind of organization but I'm missing something. My pallete ends up looking like a lot of streaks all over the paper. Weee...

Is there anything I should concentrate on doing when I'm mixing the paints? ;P I feel like a slob, and it really slows down the speed that I get a painting done. I'll post a picture of the painting tomorrow for feedback on the painting itself. Right now it's sitting on an easle at school.

[ZippZopp]

i've used palette paper a few times and i don't like it much. the way i set up is i get a small table next to me with a nice sized piece of glass on it to put all my paints. I've found that much easier, than using a small piece of palette paper. maybe more room for your paints is what you need.

[eyewoo]

Yep... when I painted I also used a big piece of glass with the edges taped and a nice white paper backing under the glass. Very easy to clean...

[jr]

pallete paper makes you cheap because you end up putting too little paint on there. get a wooden or plastic pallete. and put alot of paint, oil paint won't try as fast as acrylics so you can continue painting at home or at another time. having all those premixed colors doesn't help me too much. i find when you do that the skin tones always look generic. expecially if you paint from life. if you're doing an illustration i can understand it but working from life, i think that premixed pallete would limit you. imho.

[MadSamoan]

Cleaning your palette several times during the painting is a perfectly normal part of the painting process. It also sounds like you need a larger palette surface than the palette paper provides.

Get yourself a large wooden palette primed with linseed oil or a glass palette. If you're going to paint outdoors, you won't be able to use paper palettes anyways. You want to be able to scrape away the paint on your working area without disturbing the pure colors that you laid out from the tube, so keep them organized from warm to cool on the edge of your palette.

I would recommend you get a a Sta-Wet sealable palette box or a French Companion box and get the palette in there replaced with a custom cut sheet of glass so you can scrape off the paint with a retractable razor paint scraper.

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: MadSamoan ]

[Thanatos]

I'll give the glass and white paper thing a shot since it's not the first time I heard about it. I'll take a loot at the Sta-Wet palette box too.

I'm going to have to wait to venture outside to paint... I'm currently a tad on the slow side.

[BadMange]

I've talked to a bunch of painters and read a bunch of books, and not that they or I are experts, and I've never seen white as a palette background unless it's a paper palette. Usually it's 50% grey or brownish with some blue in it.

I stained my wooden palette with a mixture of ~5 parts Burnt Sienna to ~1 part French Ultramarine. You can substitute a different blue though. Make sure to mix in a lot of turpentine because you want to make a wash. After the wash is done, let it dry for several hours, then put on a coat of linseed oil. Wipe it off and let dry. Repeat a few more times. The linseed oil prevents the wood from soaking up the oil in the paints (if you didn't already know .

Go to a bookstore and checkout some pics of others' palettes. I'd recommend the book "The Oil Painting Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist," by Bill Creevy. I have a few books from that series and they're informative for the beginner (like me).

Again, it's a personal preference, but I agree with the 50% grey or brownish palette background thinking...

-Bad Mange

[eyewoo]

Bad M...

I always used white paper under my glass palette. If using glass it's pretty easy to change the color to gray, white or hot pink