There’s nothing more annoying than getting new paint supplies and on day one, trying to figure out how to stop paint from beading on a plastic palette. You know, the water and pigment bead into tiny little balls.  Have you experienced this? 

A few years ago, I was researching this problem because I would have to deal with it for all of my in-person workshops and retreats. Each class would have 20+ students with all their new shiny supplies and this irritating problem would come up. Can you just keep working on it and wait for the coating to wear off? Sure. I also read about artists taking a wire scrubber and scraping the coating off, or to burn it off, etc. All of these methods seemed either too aggressive or very toxic (don’t burn plastic!). 

Thankfully there’s a simple and nondestructive way to prevent this from happening. It’s something one of my followers shared with me years ago!

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How to Stop Paint From Beading on a Plastic Palette 

Tools You’ll Need

All you’ll need for this is a glue stick and a paper towel! Yep. That’s it!! Were you expecting more? Okay, don’t forget paint for afterwards to test it out.

Step One: Glue It UP!

Take your glue stick and rub it all over the mixing wells in your palette. Evenly coat the surface of the palette where you’ll be mixing colors (not the small dishes) with your sticky glue stick. This will create a nice sticky surface to paint on, but you don’t want to leave it just yet…

Step Two: Rub It IN!

Grab your paper towel and rub the glue into the palette. This isn’t rocket science people, it’s very simple. Just rub it in so there’s not tons of sticky, gooey stuff left on the surface, just a thin layer of glue rubbed into the palette.

Voilà!!

Now paint away!! Yes, that’s it!! The most simple and effective way to stop paint from beading on a plastic palette is really that easy.

Have you tried this yourself? Leave a comment below and let me know how it went for you!