Good oil paint is expensive, and the last thing you want to do is waste it because it dries out on your palette in between painting sessions.
Your paint drying out is wasteful and expensive, but the very fact that you know it will dry out can stop you from squeezing out enough paint onto your palette in the first place, which then leads to what’s called a ‘starved palette’.
A ‘starved palette’ is what happens when you’re so concerned about wasting paint, that you simply don’t squeeze out enough of the stuff in the first place. This then can lead to thin wishy-washy paintings that lack power and texture. The beauty of oil paint is partly texture, you want texture and plenty of paint on your canvas! Leave the thin flat textureless paintings to the watercolour artists.
My studio and painting table.
When I started oil painting I came over from years of watercolour painting, and mistakenly brought over the same mentality of using thin washy paint with me, which was a mistake. Oil painting is different, and part of the joy of oils is using thick buttery paint to create luscious vibrant paintings. This is hard, if not impossible to do, if you don’t use enough paint.
If someone were to ask me my number one tip to improve their oil painting, I’d say use more paint!
When you use a glass palette as I do, placing your large palette in the fridge to stop the paint drying out (a common method for more portable palettes) isn’t an option. So with that in mind, look at the photographs below to see how I stop my oil paint from drying out on my palette between painting sessions.
I use the lid off an old biscuit tin to cover my squeezed out paint when I’m not painting.
The tin lid isn’t very deep, but placed over the paint it stops the paint from drying out for about a week.
You may have noticed the top of a Branston pickle jar too, I place that over the Liquin on my palette to do exactly the same job of stopping the Liquin drying out between sessions.
Liquin is a quick-drying medium for oil and alkyd paint.
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Happy painting
Chris
