Tips For Laying Out a Palette and Mixing Paint

Artist Nina Weiss shares best practices for organizing your palette and achieving optimal results with brush techniques.

Nina uses a white enamel butcher tray, as the white surface helps to clearly see your colors, while the enamel makes it easy to clean and provides plenty of mixing space.

It’s important to set up your full palette each time you paint. Nina recommends laying out a warm and cool version of each primary color, plus white. The colors she uses are Titanium White, Lemon or Cadmium Yellow Light (cool), Cadmium Yellow Medium (warm), Alizarin Crimson or Quinacridone Red (cool), Cadmium Red Medium (warm), Ultramarine Blue (cool), and Cyan Blue (warm). You may want to label your tubes as warm or cool for easy reference. Arrange your palette from left to right, light to dark, and remember to wipe the rims of your tubes to keep them clean. Mist your paint with a spray bottle to prevent it from drying too quickly.

Nina prefers using a bright-shaped brush for mixing. If you thin your paint with water, she suggests adding GAC 100 to maintain the paint's polymer strength. When mixing, always add darker colors into lighter ones. As your mixtures grow larger, keep them contained to avoid spilling over onto your palette.

Sometimes, paint can creep up to the ferrule of your brush while mixing, so be sure to incorporate it back into the mixture for thorough blending. Aim for a paint mixture that flows smoothly without dripping and provides good opaque coverage. To adjust the value of your color, add white. When applying paint, avoid scrubbing your brush back and forth; instead, lay it down in long, smooth strokes. Painting is not just about applying color—it's about how you apply it.