How Often Should I Clean My Palette?
The above picture features my dirty palette that I’ve been using for about a year or so and I haven’t cleaned it at all!
WHAT ? ?
If this is what you’re thinking, I am also here to tell you
YES!
And it’s perfectly fine!
Watercolour is water activated, so putting a wet brush to any of the dried paint will reactivate it and you can keep using it! There is no waste at all!
However, there is a threshold of how dirty my palette can get and I absolutely HAVE to clean it. If you start noticing gritty paint bits on the palette that doesn’t dissolve and sits on your paintings, then it’s time to do some housekeeping for your palette!
HOW TO CLEAN YOUR PALETTE
There is a perfectly easy way to do it. Just grab a sheet of wet wipes and start scrubbing! You will be able to get into all the nitty gritty corners of the palette box and scrub everything out. Don’t worry about the stained palette, it becomes that way due to prolonged usage but the colour will not transfer to your brush as long as you’ve made sure to wipe everything clean! As you can see from the picture above, the bottom part of the palette still has paint while the top is clean.
I usually take the wet wipes and go over the tiny partition between the pans of colours as well to clean any reside dust or paint splatters that have accumulated there. All it takes is 10 minutes and your palette will be sparkling clean and ready for use again! Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried this out and found it useful!
