In a painting class I took in college we had these wooden carts with glass tops for storing our supplies. The glass top acted as your palette, so you could sit or stand and work and didn’t have to hold your palette in your hand. I’ve never personally been a fan of hand-held palettes. Partially because so many of them are cut to hold in your left hand, so the angle is wrong for a lefty like me to use it with your right hand but also because I tend to get pretty… involved in my painting. At times, I even forgo brushes and use my fingers to get just the right effect (I guess I never quite grew out of the whole childhood finger painting thing?). So I find it awkward and difficult to use a handheld palette. I Loved those glass-topped carts. They were old and ratty from years of abuse by art students, but the glass still worked great.

Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels

Once I was out “in the real world” I realized just how poorly the typical artist’s palettes worked for me. They were the wrong size or the wrong shape. They never had quite enough room. They were impossible to clean. I needed something better. I missed those carts with their glass tops.

Aha! A quest! After a great deal of searching, I discovered the perfect solution: Amaco Classic Glass Palettes. It’s a rectangular glass palette, just like the tops of those carts, but I could put it anywhere I wanted. No bulky cabinet attached! It comes in two sizes of rectangular palette as well as a more traditional oval hand held style. I got the smaller size, since at the time I was living in an apartment without a dedicated studio space. My kitchen breakfast nook served multiple roles: kitchen table, computer desk, art workspace. I needed something that wouldn’t overhang the edges of the tabletop and was small enough to stash somewhere else after a painting session. Recently, I’ve been considering getting the larger size, since I now have a dedicated studio space. It never hurts to have more room for mixing colors!

Amaco Classic Glass Palette

Anyway, this thing is great. It has a nice, smooth surface that’s perfect for mixing paints. It’s not absorbent so it doesn’t stain or discolor and cleans up easily. I use it solely with oils, though acrylics are supposed to peel off easily. Wet oil paint just wipes off and dried paint can be scraped off with a razor blade. On the downside, it Is glass, so it’s heavy and fragile. Since I paint indoors in my studio, that’s not really an issue for me, though caution is warranted. It’s best to keep it out of reach of pets, small children, or clumsy roommates!

What about you–have you found Your perfect palette?