How To Clean An Maintain Your Watercolor Palette

Watercolor is an amazing medium if you enjoy painting. Whether you paint every day or only use your watercolor palette occasionally, you need to learn to clean and maintain your palette. A high quality palette though is not expensive should get proper care of it if you want to be able to use it for a long time.

When you have finished painting and want to bring the palette to a new condition, you can rinse it in water and scrape off the excessive left over paint.

Here is a short video how to clean a Rigger Arts folding watercolors palette.

If you take good care of your palette, you should be able to use it for years. You only need a small quantity of watercolor to paint even if you want to cover a large surface and it is possible to replace individual paints if you have a palette that allows you to remove each small square.

Cleaning your watercolor palette is something you need to do when you are done painting. Do not worry about getting rid of every small speck of paint since your palette does not need to be pristine. However, it is best to use a small sponge to gently wipe the specks and stains so that they do not contaminate other colors.
If a color is contaminated, all you have to do is add some water and gently place a sponge over the paint to absorb the color. The paint should be restored to its original color. If it still looks contaminated, add more water and repeat this process.

You can either use a small sponge to gently clean your palette or a cloth. It is best to use a damp sponge to wipe any paint that could contaminate other color, even if this means that you are not eliminating all the specks and stains.

Maintaining your watercolor palette is fairly easy. You need to avoid placing it in an area where it could be exposed to direct sun light and heat. This will dry your colors and will make them unusable. Try and keep it in the shade, or in a bag, or the easel box if you are going plein air painting. Watercolor paint can become dry and lose its quality if it is exposed to a hot and dry environment for long periods of time.
You should purchase a palette that can be closed to protect the paint so that you do not have to worry about the paint being exposed to humidity or to a hot and dry environment.

If you use your palette to mix your colors, wait for the paint to completely dry before closing the palette or use a sponge or a cloth to gently wipe the paint you mixed. If you do not have enough space to mix colors in your palette or are worried about contaminating your other colors, you should use a piece of paper or a second palette to mix your colors.

Your watercolor palette does not have to be perfectly clean. In fact, you will notice that not a single painter has a clean palette. Your watercolor palette will look pristine when you first buy it (this may even cause the watercolor beading on palette) and it will get a unique look as you use it. All you have to do is clean any paint that has not dried before you close the palette and avoid exposing your palette to humidity or to a hot and dry environment. Cleaning and maintaining your palette is very easy and you should not obsess over the cleanliness of your palette.

Quick Tip – How To Store Your Brushes

For best protection for your paint brushes, carry them and store them in the canvas rollup wrap. Don’t throw them in the bag or let the shape be meshed in a tight pouch.  Check here for latest discount on the canvas brush holder organizer.

Using the canvas wrap brush holder each brush has a pocket and you can take up to 20 brushes, each in their own pocket. Roll up the canvas and know they are all tucked nice and safely inside not getting crumbed in your art bag, getting all messy and squashed. The wrap can be used as a drying place for watercolor brushes too, as they should not be left dripping upright in a jar. The best way is to leave them to air dry on a flat surface.