Over the past year I have improved upon cleaning my paint palette after every couple of sessions instead of once a month or after a painting was finished...or so I thought. Somehow, I don't know how, but I found my palette looking rather filled with hardened clumps and mixed swatches of paint. Someone was painting without cleaning up...was it me? Yuuup. So this is how to clean a pallete that is ridiculously coated and could be an abstract painting all on it's own.
1. Assess the damage. Pretty bad, indeed. You could at this point cry about the loss of paint, or you can embrace the evidence of working. You have overcome resistance and have shown up and created! You are alive! You are creating! You have a mess! Now, clean it up for crap sake.
2. Get a couple of papertowels and your palette knife. Begin scraping off the paint and then begin wipe it on the papertowel. Reflect about the paintings you created with these colors if it brings you comfort. Were they failures or successes? What did you learn? What would you change about them if you did them again? Or you can do what I usually do and just go brain dead by looking at how pretty the colors are. Oh, so pretty.
3. Usually I like to get more paint up by scraping it, but this time they wouldn't budge. So onward to this step: put a healthy amount of dish detergeant around the surface.
4. Fill with hot tap water and allow to soak for about 5-10 minutes. You can use this time for sketching out a new idea, singing at the top of your lungs to Seasons of Love on the Rent soundtrack, country line dancing with the random people who just let themselves into your home, steeping tea, or playing fetch with your cat.
5. Part the bubbles and admire the color. Good. Now continue scratching them off calmly. Don't go all crazy going back and forth with your palette knife here. That will get you nowhere. Just be as calm as an archeologist uncovering years of dirt from a relic. Don't worry about fishing out what you scrape off - you can skim the water out while carefully getting the flakes to stay in as they will gather on the bottom of the palette (don't let the oil paint go down your drain for multiple reasons). Then wipe out with a papertowel or cloth. Repeat steps 3-5 until it is clean.
6. Voila! A clean palette ready for use. Usually this is a good time to make a resolution to never let it get that bad again, but it will. In the grand scheme of things, who cares? You're working and beating that monster of resistance who can have so many excuses for you. Messy or clean, whatever gets you to the canvas is a good thing.
1. Assess the damage. Pretty bad, indeed. You could at this point cry about the loss of paint, or you can embrace the evidence of working. You have overcome resistance and have shown up and created! You are alive! You are creating! You have a mess! Now, clean it up for crap sake.
2. Get a couple of papertowels and your palette knife. Begin scraping off the paint and then begin wipe it on the papertowel. Reflect about the paintings you created with these colors if it brings you comfort. Were they failures or successes? What did you learn? What would you change about them if you did them again? Or you can do what I usually do and just go brain dead by looking at how pretty the colors are. Oh, so pretty.
3. Usually I like to get more paint up by scraping it, but this time they wouldn't budge. So onward to this step: put a healthy amount of dish detergeant around the surface.
4. Fill with hot tap water and allow to soak for about 5-10 minutes. You can use this time for sketching out a new idea, singing at the top of your lungs to Seasons of Love on the Rent soundtrack, country line dancing with the random people who just let themselves into your home, steeping tea, or playing fetch with your cat.
5. Part the bubbles and admire the color. Good. Now continue scratching them off calmly. Don't go all crazy going back and forth with your palette knife here. That will get you nowhere. Just be as calm as an archeologist uncovering years of dirt from a relic. Don't worry about fishing out what you scrape off - you can skim the water out while carefully getting the flakes to stay in as they will gather on the bottom of the palette (don't let the oil paint go down your drain for multiple reasons). Then wipe out with a papertowel or cloth. Repeat steps 3-5 until it is clean.
6. Voila! A clean palette ready for use. Usually this is a good time to make a resolution to never let it get that bad again, but it will. In the grand scheme of things, who cares? You're working and beating that monster of resistance who can have so many excuses for you. Messy or clean, whatever gets you to the canvas is a good thing.
Enjoy your day and thank you for reading! If you have any other tips for this process, please comment and share. Thanks!
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