Drawn to the Tiny Dish

 

Click Here to Bid (6x6in. - oil - starts at $100)

My husband found this tiny little glass dish/bowl thing, and now that I've painted it I'm afraid no one will know what it is. So I put it in the title. 😬 (heh heh)

I have a new palette situation that is as close to palette nirvana as I think I'm going to get. From a local glass store, I ordered a sheet of Starfire (completely clear), 1/4 in thick glass (12x36 in), with polished edges (so they aren't sharp). It cost me $68. I painted the backside with 2 layers of white gesso, put little rubber feet on it (so it doesn't move when I clean it), and installed it on top of my taboret/tool chest thingie.

The last few palettes I had quickly got all scratched up and ugly. Even though I didn't think metal should scratch it, both the metal scraper I used to clean up the paint AND my palette knives (I think mostly the latter) scratched it just sometimes, but enough to make it a total pain to clean. So now I use this plastic thing (cheap from Home Depot) to scrape up all my paint mixes after a painting. And it works real good. As long as I always do it after every painting.

Once I've got most of the paint off, I use a paper towel to clean up the rest, re-folding it multiple times to get every bit of paint off. Sometimes the main piles can get a little dried on if they sit for a while, so I use my metal scraper ever so carefully, and so far, no scratches.

When I want to use my palette knives, I use them only on a paper palette that I keep handy. I tried plastic knives but they were pretty lame.

The only downside, as you can maybe see from the first picture, is that this palette isn't as bright a white as the paper palette, and I have to keep that in mind for my values when I'm mixing. I'm sure I'll get used to it quickly. Because I adore starting each day with a completely clean, beautiful palette. It makes me so happy. 😃