Painters can be very particular about their palettes. For oil painting, I like to use a wooden arm palette. I’ve found that the best preparation is a method traditionally used in woodworking called French polishing. This method provides a tough, smooth surface that is not soluble in oil, turps, mineral spirits, or any of the other solvents used in oil painting. It’s easy to clean. Hardened oil paint, if necessary, can be quickly removed with a green kitchen scrubee pad soaked in turps or mineral spirits. The paint sticks well to the palette without resisting the brush or the palette knife.
Get yourself a new wooden palette and sand down any splinters or imperfections. Make sure it fits your hand well. You will need some fresh shellac; the stuff you get at a furniture store will do. You could also make your own by dissolving dry shellac flakes in denatured alcohol. You will need some denatured alcohol for cleaning up, a one-foot square of lint-free cloth, preferably linen, and a small amount of linseed oil. Fold the cloth into a convenient size—about 2” is good. Dip the pad in shellac and wipe it over the surface of the palette, covering thoroughly and evenly. Pour a small amount of linseed oil onto the surface of your cloth. While the shellac is still tacky, rub the cloth over the surface of the palette in a circular motion. With a little practice, you get a sense of how to do this so that the shellac is spread smoothly and pressed into the wood. Let the palette dry enough so that the shellac is it no longer tacky (15 minutes or so). Apply and then polish another layer, and another, and another, until the palette has a surface that feels sufficiently thick (I apply about 8–10 layers). It is beautifully smooth.
If the surface of your palette eventually gets damaged by repeated scraping, you can remove the old shellac with denatured alcohol and apply a new French polish. In three years of heavy use, I haven’t yet had to do that.
I´m following your instructions to prepare my palette. I´ve applied four coats of shellac and oil, and it looks quite glossy. Don´t know if that´s the way it´s suppossed to be or I´m doing something wrong, but anyway, how do I turn it into a more matte surface?
Jose,
French polishing normally produces a glossy surface, which allows it to be very easily cleaned.
I have not tried to make it matte. If I wanted to do that, I’d experiment with applying a final layer of shellac (perhaps thinned slightly with denatured alcohol) without polishing. If that didn’t give me the surface I was looking for, I’d try sanding it, increasing the coarseness of the sandpaper until the sheen was as dull as I wanted it to be.
Let me know how it turns out.
I just splurged for one of those Whitaker designed mahogany real gesso palettes– I am a lefty so it was nice that they have that option!
Finally, I´ve sanded with fine-grained sandpaper, using oil as lubricant, and have achieved a very nice smooth, semi-gloss surface. We´ll see how it works… (Thank you David)
Jose,
I hope it works for you.
Thank you Mr. Rourke for posting this. I always knew there was more prep work involved than just rubbing a few layers of linseed oil on a palette. Wood palettes have always been a favourite of mine, my father, who got me started in painting, used them. I have never thought of using anything else.
On another note, your blog has so much valuable information (discovered through wetcanvas.com), I have it bookmarked and plan on making regular visits. I appreciate you making it somewhat personal; I think this makes folks more apt to making comments.
Thank you again & glad to read little Brendan is doing better.
Meabh
Tinting the French polish? Any idea how I would tint the polish a neutral, mid-tone gray?
Melanie,
If I wanted a grey palette, I’d probably paint the wood before I applied shellac to it. The shellac would make the hue slightly warmer than the base paint tone.
Thank you, David! I tried the French polish (not with gray paint) on some birch plywood 12” × 16” and ran into a problem. The shellac dried so fast I could not get the oil rubbed in on the last third of the palette. The shellac got sticky faster than I could work it with oil. I live in Florida. It’s 85 degrees today. Could that be it?
Do you know how I could slow down the drying of the shellac for a few minutes?
And do you have a ballpark guess regarding the relative proportion of oil to shellac? I think I used too much oil when the surface became sticky.
Sorry to be such a pest.
Melanie,
I am by no means an expert on shellac or French polishing. You might want to do a Google search on “French polish.” You’ll get referred to lots of sites with info on furniture making and hand finishing of musical instruments. The procedure is the same, so the information you find on those sites might be useful.
You might well be finding that heat and humidity affect how easy it is to work with the shellac. However, in my experience, it’s OK for the shellac have hardened a bit when you polish it. Just keep going over it with a cloth dipped in a very small amount of oil and it will become smooth. If you need to retard drying, you could try adding a bit of denatured alcohol. Also make sure the shellac is from a freshly opened can.
You aren’t mixing oil with shellac. You apply the shellac, then use a pad dipped in just a little oil. The oil acts to lubricate the pad and allow it to glide over the surface, polishing it at a microscopic level. Again, check out sites with info on French polishing for more complete explanations.
I hope this is helpful.
Wow! that was a fast reply! Thanks so much. I will research more online.
I’ll also get a new can of shellac. This one wasn’t new.
It helps to know I’m not trying to mix the oil into the shellac, but only polishing the layer.
If I paint the palette gray, the shellac might not sink into the wood. I’ll check on that.
By the way: Today I made a concoction which didn’t exactly work, but might work if I fine-tuned it. I made an emulsion by stirring water-soluble linseed oil into shellac. Then I added a bit of gray tube paint, which mixed right in. But I had too much oil; it migrated to the surface and just sat there. And now I realize the idea is not to make an emulsion with the oil and shellac.
Melanie,
You’re going way beyond what I’ve ever tried to do with shellac. Let me know how it turns out.
First, thank you for this wonderfully cool, informative site. I used your method here for the palette of my pochade, and it is wonderful.
may do the entire box, as it is unfinished, but for now, it is a dream to mix on.
James,
You’re welcome.
Thanks for the interesting blog! I just picked up a can of shellac at my local hardware store, it seems to require a more complex process: first, it has to be “cut” to a certain degree, but they don’t supply the formula; second, it specifies waiting an hour between coats; third, is specifies sanding between coats. Did I pick a bad brand? Or did your brand have similar instructions, which you ignored :).
Marie,
You can cut shellac with denatured alcohol, which should also be available at your hardware store. Waiting an hour and sanding between coats is not applicable to French polishing; you might want to do a search on that topic on the web for more information, as I am hardly an expert.
Did a table top with “french polish” and if you want to cut the sheen down a little try rubbing linseed oil with pumice stone on pallette. should knock down sheen somewhat but the whole idea behind French Polishing is to give your piece a deep sheen not the plastic look that most cheap furniture sports.. hope this helps a little!
I ambeing artist (Acrylic) and aquired a wooden palette. Can I use this method to prepare the palette to use with acrylic paints?
Chris,
You certainly could do that, but I’m not sure how hard it would be to scrape dried paint off.