How to Make Your Own Wet Palette
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Are you tired of your miniature paints drying out all the time? I have been painting miniatures for a little over a year now and was never on the wet palette band wagon. Maybe it was because I thought it would be just 1 more thing to buy in this hobby, or maybe I was under the impression that they really didn’t do much. Well I was wrong. Wet palettes are an essential tool that everyone should be using. They give you a freeing feeling of being able to snap it shut and go do something else for a while instead of slogging on until the miniature is done. The point of this article is to show you how to make a wet palette yourself just using things laying around your house.
The things that will be needed here are:
Paper towel
Parchment paper
Shallow plastic container
water
scissors
Yep, that’s all it takes. I prefer to use a shallow plastic container as it wont be super annoying to dip my brushes into the container everytime I go back for more paint. The container I used works fine if you are not using many colors, but if you are able to find one that has more surface area on the bottom then go for it!
Additionally, make sure that the container can have an airtight seal. If you want to be able to come back to your paints hours later and have then still be wet and ready to go, you will need to make sure you have this. Without an airtight seal, the water will begin to dry out over time along with the paint on the palette.
Place Paper Towel
To start we will be placing a torn off piece of paper towel into the plastic container. This is going to be what behaves like a sponge to help contain moisture. There is no need to wet the towel yet, just try your best to cover the entire bottom while also trying to make it as flat as possible.
Place the Parchment Paper
Now it’s time to tear off a piece of parchment paper. We use parchment paper because it will let a little moisture through without the paper itself soaking and falling apart itself. It should be important to note here that wax paper will not work. The water will run over the paper and not be able to come through the bottom to keep your paint wet.
Cut the parchment paper to fit the container base. We don’t want to fold this paper like we could do with the paper towel as this needs to be able to sit on that paper towel to get the water wicked up. Once the paper is cut. place it on top of the paper towel in the container.
Add the Water
Time to add the water. I doesn’t matter where you pour the water into in the container, just make sure that you don’t add to much. Take a little at a time, pick up the container and move it from side to side so the water seeps under the parchment paper and gets soaked up by the paper towel. When the paper towel is sufficiently wet you should be able to feel the moisture coming up through the parchment paper with your finger by slightly pressing down on it.
Conclusion
That is all it takes to make a wet palette. Once this is done, just drop your paint onto the parchment paper and paint on. I really wish I had started this sooner. It helps me as a beginner painter to no end. It’s also really nice because I have those colors from my current painting session saved for me so I can pick out other models that will use the same color scheme and paint them at a later time in the day.
Of course if you want to just buy one for yourself you can always do that to. Here are a couple that I found on Amazon that are good and have a good amount of space to have several paints on them.
I cannot recommend doing this enough, and for new painters, I cannot recommend enough starting with this. It will instantly help you get started painting and take time and grow your skills as a miniature painter. I hope this article has helped anyone wanting to know how to put one of these together! If it has and you know of someone that could use this information, share it with them!
As I continue to get better at painting miniatures myself I will be sure to blog my progress and my new models.
