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| Too wet and the colours run. Too dry and the colours dry out. But it's still a great idea. |
I've never used a traditional artist's palette of any type to paint miniatures. I've used paints singly straight out of the bottles, or, rather, I've used a cocktail-stick or coffee-stirrer to transfer dollops of each paint onto old jar lids.
Using a 'mixing' palette encourages a dirtier approach, intentionally or just inevitably. This hasn't made much difference to the Thirty Years War armies which are block painted with dabs of bright colour, but I'm wondering if the increased spectrum of tone will add to realism when painting larger figures.
The wet palette can't be used for washes or metallics. Obtaining the right degree of wetness is tricky, not least because the paints themselves vary in their wetness. I therefore still keep old lids (my dry palettes) and a little dish of water next to the wet palette for dealing with watery or overly dry paints.
With the right wetness paints will last quite a few days and I can quickly return to painting in an odd moment of opportunity which is very handy for fitting in my painting around other commitments. While I haven't yet optimised my use of a wet palette, it’s become central to my current painting.
