PELI Glass and Williams & Byrne presented a workshop 30 June – 1 July 2012 to 10 participants from the Netherlands, Belgium and Romania.
As continually emphasized by Williams & Byrne, you must give constant attention to the paint on your palette. If the paint is the wrong consistency your painting brush can’t make it right simply by lifting it from the palette to the glass.
1. You need a good-sized palette that is approximately the size of a sheet of paper. If your palette is much smaller than this, you’ll find it difficult to keep it organized. A piece of 3 mm float glass with the edges smoothed will work fine. The first time you use it, you’ll need to condition it and remove any oils from the palette surface by vigorously rubbing it with paper towels dipped in wet glass paint – the best cleaner for glass painting!
2. The sort of palette knife you use is important – it must be sturdy enough and wide enough to grind your paint to the desired consistency.
3. How your prepare your lump of paint depends on what kind of painting you intend to do. Use your palette knife to grind your paints and keep them mixed throughout your painting.
4. Use your palette knife to keep your palette organized. Unless you have a fine arts training, you will probably use your palette knife less than you should. Make a conscious effort to use your palette knife more than you already do.
5. If your palette becomes messy, always take the time to clean and re-arrange it, use your Hake brush to moisten it, and use your palette knife to bring the paint to its rightful place – even if this takes several minutes of your time.
This video link shows you specifically how to tidy up your palette when you’re done with a painting session. The palette knife pushes the wet paint to the proper position, the hake brush softens the residual paint, and then finally the palette is wiped clean. All in less than 1.5 minutes!
http://vimeo.com/williamsandbyrne/tidy-palette
PELI Glass offers a Power Palette knife – the working knife blade is 10.4 cm (4.1 in) long and 2 cm (0.8 in) wide. The metal of the knife is encased in the handle of the palette knife, guaranteeing a strong and reliable product. In fact, we believe this is the best palette knife we’ve seen and we guarantee it: if the knife blade ever comes out of the handle of the Power Palette Knife, PELI Glass will replace it for free.
