My cup runneth over and my palette was going dry. Yesterday, I spilled my water on the table while painting. Today I dipped my brush into my glass of drinking water noticed how shallow my Reeves watercolor travel palette was getting. So I refilled my palette. I dug up my tube watercolor paints (I prefer pan paints for my practice) and squeezed out and discarded any liquid that accumulated at the top of the tube before the paint came out. Then I refilled my yellow (that was practically empty), and every other color – phathalo blue, ultramarine blue, sap green, permanent green, bright red, orange, ochre, burnt sienna, burnt umber, black, and instead of refilling the white with white, I put violet in the indentation. Letting it dry 24 hours, but used it to work on my next blog post piece – and the paint reconstitutes with a little water. Easy peasy. Since I don’t use a lot of tube paint, this is a good way to use it now rather than running the risk of it drying up and going bad (unable to come out of the tube).
It does look a bit like a painting, its quite beautiful!
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Good idea! For my tubes that have gone hard, I’ve cut the tops off with a stanley knife, so I can still use them as dry watercolour. But this is far more organised 🙂
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I do the same thing, cut open the tube! It works!
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Really interesting – there’s some discussion online about whether tube paints are viable once they have been squeezed out. I understand that pan paints have an ingredient which allows them to reconstitute better than tube paints. If you’re finding that this works for you, I’d be very interested to try it too!
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Yes, good point – so far, so good. I often use leftover paint in my palette. Just need to give it a little bit to moisten and let the water work in.
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This great! Perfect way to keep those travel pans alive and not waste the tubes. Win win! 👍🏻👍🏻
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That really is a good idea. I might mix some gouache in with my nearly empty pans. Thanks. N.
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Looks like some really yummy icing! (K.)
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Great idea! Thanks for sharing.
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That’s a great idea! I wish I’d seen this before my tubes went dry already.
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I thought it was a painting… hee hee.
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