Saturday, July 12, 2008

Cleaning the Palette

You would think cleaning the paint off my palette would be a quick and easy job....not so.

Because I use acrylics, applying the paint directly to gessoed (primed) canvas makes it damp and stretches the canvas.

When I have to clean my palette, I use the leftover paint to seal white canvases from any water penetration while painting. I search the house for all my stretched canvases (which are stored in every available nook and cranny) and collect them in the dining room for priming. I just give a quick mix to all the leftover paint in the tray and spread it on the canvases. It usually takes two coats and on a damp day like today they take forever to dry. :(
It really doesn't matter what colour they become. The sealer won't show through when I paint on top.

If I have a difficult perspective or position of a person or animal, I will block in areas with different colours. It makes it easy to keep the proportions correct when I paint over the areas in detail.
I don't make a detailed drawing on my canvas. It gets covered in opaque paint that I can't see through. It's funny, I always said I couldn't draw with a pencil, but I can draw with a paintbrush. I must be using the left side of my brain. My right brain thinks of math when I pick up a pencil. (Laughing...)


Then I can throw away the parchment paper and wash the sponge in my Stay Wet Palette.

I'm all ready to paint again. :)

Pam

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