Snell Isle Bridge

Snell Isle Bridge
6x8 inches
oil on linen
$300.00



Painter's Tip


Managing Your palette


Keeping your palette clean and manageable during a painting session is very important if you want clean crisp work. I hate a messy palette. Often, if I see a painter struggling with muddy work it is because their palette habits are poor.

I start with my paints lined up in hue groups at the top of my palette in a row. For beginners I always recommend that you lay them out in the same order each time you paint. I always use long ribbons of paint, staying away from blobs. Ribbons allow you to pull paint off the end of the ribbon without contaminating the rest of the color.

I begin by pulling off paints from the ribbon to mix further down on the palette. As I process through the painting I am mixing various spots of color low down on the palette. Leaving the original ribbons of paint clean and undisturbed. As I begin to make the lower palette messy, I will stop and wipe the bottom half clean, so that I have a new and fresh mixing space on the palette.

My other good habit is placing the strokes of paint where I want them on the canvas and then wiping my brush thoroughly with a paper towel before dipping into the solvent. My solvent lasts much longer, staying fresh.

I do my mixing on the palette rather than the canvas, so my color stays clean and crisp. Making good muds is great. Making muds because you don’t have control of your palette is not so great.