Trying New Things.

As I try to work through all the trials generated by the car accident I begin to get more time little by little.  In the world of painting there's been one thing I've been wanting to try for a while now: a wet palette.  A wet palette is a way to keep your paints from drying out by using a constant source of moisture through various means.  You can buy them professionally or you can explore a number of do-it-yourself setups.  There are a number of different tutorials out there, but this is the one I chose to go with.

I was a little skeptical at first since I only had non-waxy parchment paper, but the results were astounding:



What you're looking at is the white paint I put on the wet palette while I was working with some flesh on a miniature for a friend:



The flesh tones were also on the wet palette.  What blows my mind away is that the white paint was a test.  I put it on there while working on the flesh colors, and this would normally cause it to dry out on my normal palette.  When I went to dip my brush in though, it was still fresh!  The real icing on the cake though is that the white you see on the Battlepod's legs above is 100% of what I put on the palette.  100%!  For years I have been letting paint dry on my palette, or in its well.  As paint sits it dries, and as it dries it loses its smoothness/flow, and ends up taking more time to paint a larger area than fresh paint would.  So the obvious benefits to a wet palette are smoother coats, and less time spent re-filling/re-thinning paint.

I closed up the container I was using (I'll post pics later), and ended up testing it again this morning.  More than 36 hours later and the flesh paints I had used were still wet, but had separated due to moisture!  This makes me insanely happy as it means that I can mix up a color and leave it for an extended period while it still being relatively fresh.  All that I need to do is figure out a good moisture to paint ratio.