acrylic paint drying out on palette

Lots of good suggestions and methods here for keeping acrylics from drying out quickly when on the pallet. Scroll down toward the end of the page.

http://www.goldenpaints.com/technicaldata/drying.php


I've used both the spray bottle/water misting technique and the moisture-retaining pallets when using acrylics for my craft projects. Keeping my paints in a plastic icecube tray and occassionally misting them with water worked best for me. For longer storage, I just misted with water and then wrapped the tray tightly with plastic wrap between painting sessions.

The technical data from Golden (arguably the best brand on the market) contains good ideas. My suggestion is to use acrylic retarder which is added to the paint. You can find it on the paint rack at your art store.
There is relatively new brand of acrylic (I may be mis-spelling this): Atellier or Attellier. It dries from the inside out so it stays moist on your palette and also on the canvas, allowing you to do reworking.
It is a brand that only is available in serious art supply stores. Good product but a bit of a tough sell for us. Golden, I hear, is working on a similar line.

I only use acrylics for wood carvings , I dont like it for painting just because it does dry so fast. Ive used Jo Sanja and Kamiya(?) sp.(?) because these have really brilliant colors for cartoony style carvings.
I always thinned them with isopropyl alcohol (its so cheap at 70% strength and its less flammable.
I used to thin the Jo Sanja down to a thinner mix that would be good in an air brush. even then I wouldnt leave any pigment in the receptacles or the spray bottles. It was always easier to mix a quart bottle mess of piment and then just dip it in the spray receptacles as I needed it.

lot of thinners about

and you know how?

ino professional painters do a better job around the shack than i do

oops hey cmon the skirtings are still art

k the artwork hangs in the garage