My paints are super dry and need some attention. It’s interesting to see which ones are smooth and look like new and which ones are cracked and crumbly.
Here is a video of my going through my palettes and reviving the colours.
Be warned, there is a lot of lint and dust since my palettes have been sitting untouched for quite a while. If you want to clean off an old dusty palette you can put the whole thing under water, or you can swish your brush in water, clean off the top layer of the paint, repeat a couple times, and it should be good to go.
I found out that my professional watercolour paints revived more easily than beginner grade colours. The professional paints reactivated very quickly and had lots of colour. Even the beginner paints still worked though.
Getting back to painting after a long break isn’t always easy, but the hardest step is just getting started, and this felt like a good way to get the paints flowing again. Besides, my palettes really needed this. I couldn’t have started a painting with all the dust on them!
Around half way through I do a demonstration of mixing my own black with two of my most used colours.
This video is far from perfect – wobbly video, in and out of focus, sometimes painting almost out of view (haha) – but it’s a start, and that feels like a big step forward.
Filed under: Tips.