Masterson’s Sta-Wet Palettes are multipurpose, suitable for acrylic, watercolour, and oils. These palettes will reduce the drying time of your paints for several days, saving you time, money, and paint. This is especially helpful with a medium like acrylic paint or gouache as these two paints dry the quickest when left in the open. Masterson’s palettes are highly convenient, providing great peace of mind whilst painting. The freedom to prepare and re use the same palette for multiple painting sessions is irreplaceable, which is why many people fall in love with Masterson’s Sta-Wet palette.
For acrylics, the palettes come equipped with a sponge, a sheet of palette paper that has been particularly designed to stay wet without losing integrity, and an airtight seal. To prep for use, simply wet the sponge, place it inside the palette, then lay the palette sheet over the sponge. The paint will absorb the moisture from the wet sponge through the paper sheet and the absorbed water will keep your paint open whilst the palette is open, and once closed the paint can keep for days or even weeks.
There are multiple types of Masterson palettes, and we can give you a rundown of each one here.
Types of Palettes in the Sta-Wet Range
Super Pro:
The Super Pro is Masterson’s most multi-purpose palette, suitable for oil, acrylic, watercolour, or gouache. The super Pro has 28 separate wells for holding paint and 3 mixing areas. The inverted lid can be used as another mixing area as well, giving the artist plenty of working space when mixing colour. This palette’s dimensions are 39 x 29 x 4.4cm.
Aqua Pro:
The Masterson Aqua Pro palette is a favourite with the serious Watercolour Artist. The lid snaps down tightly on the base for transport but also can be used as an additional mixing area when inverted. The palettes dimensions are 40x 30x 4.5cm. There are 32 separate wells for holding paints and there are 3 divided mixing areas to keep your colour ranges separate and clean. The Aqua Pro is stain-resistant and has all the necessary features any watercolourist could demand.
Handy:
The Handy Palette is the smallest palette by Mastersons, its dimensions being only 21 x 17 x 3.5 cm, making it perfect for the classroom or travel. It comes with five acrylic paper palette sheets and one Mastersons sponge. Best suited for acrylics and other water-based paints.
Painters Pal:
The Painter’s Pal is a compact palette for easy transport and great utility for acrylics and other water-based paints. The palettes dimensions are 33 x 30 x 3.8cm so can easily be taken out for plein air painting or to differing ateliers. The Painter’s Pal comes with five sheets of “Sta-Wet” Acrylic palette paper, a cellulose sponge, five cups for storage of paint or solvent, and room for brush storage beneath the cups.
Premier:
The classic Masterson palette is the premier palette, coming with a large palette tray and lid, measuring at 31 x 41 x 3.5 cm, including five sheets of acrylic paper and a Masterson sponge. This palette allows the artist much more space to work and move paint on the palette and is great in the home studio. For acrylics and other water-based paints.
Seal:
This palette is best suited for keeping oils as it does not come with paper and sponge. Instead, it allows you to keep whatever palette you’d like inside. We highly recommend using a glass palette, yet paper, wood or acrylic palettes will also do the trick. The airtight seal will keep your oils open for much longer than normal. The palette can even be put in the refrigerator or the freezer to keep the oils open for weeks at a time. This palette’s dimensions are 31 x 41 x 3.5 cm.
How to Prepare the Palette for Acrylics
Prepare the acrylic Sta-Wet paper by filling a container or your sink with hot water from the tap. Submerge the paper into the water and let it soak for 15 minutes. Take the sponge included in your palette and rinse it under the tap to remove any surface additives. Then fully saturate the sponge, wring out half of the water from the sponge and place it smooth side up in the tray. Once you have done that, you can place the prepared acrylic paper from earlier on top of the sponge. Make sure to gently wipe off any excess water from the surface before applying paint. Now you’re free to paint! The paper is strong and designed to withstand the use of palette knives and will hold through multiple sessions. If you don’t wish the keep the paint you’ve been working with after a session, you can rinse the paper to remove the paint, wring out the sponge and leave it to dry for your next painting session! Just remember to prep both the sponge and paper with water again.
FAQ
How can I keep mold from forming in my palette?
General care for your sponge is the best advice for maintaining its health and avoiding mould. In between uses you can rinse and leave your sponge out to dry. It may warp, but once re-wet it will return to the usual shape. You can sprinkle a little baking soda on your sponge to keep it a little fresher and smelling nice. However, the best way to avoid mould growing would be to add a little ammonia to the water you’re using in the sponge. This will deter most mould.
Can I use any sort of palette paper?
If you are using your Masterson palette for oils you are welcome to use whatever palette you would like, whether that be glass, wood, paper, or peelable plastic. Because oils are not water-soluble the wet sponge and Masterson’s acrylic palette paper have no benefit in keeping oil paint from drying. If you are using acrylic paint it needs to be Masterson’s palette paper, as it has a thin plastic coating which stops the paper from dissolving from the water in the sponge.
How do I transport the palette?
The palette is airtight, but not completely watertight - small droplets may still leak through. So, the palette should be transported flat if there is water inside.
How do I use oils in the Sta-Wet palette?
The wet sponge and acrylic paper palette sheets won’t be much help with slowing the drying time of oils. So, the reason why Sta-Wet palettes are still quite popular among oil painters is because of the airtight seal that Sta-Wet palettes provide. Oils dry through oxidisation so keeping airflow away from your oils is the best way to keep them wet for longer. Oil paint also dries much slower in cold temperatures and dries quickly in warm. So, the combination of the airtight seal and then also placing the Sta-Wet palette in your refrigerator or freezer will keep your oil paint wet for weeks.
This is of course not the case with water soluble oil paints, of which the sponge and acrylic paper palette sheets will work, and well keep the water-soluble oils wet for longer.
My paints look like they’re melting, what do I do?
If the consistency of your paints starts to look alarmingly runny, it is possible you’ve simply put too much water into your palette. The excess water can start to infuse with the paint, deteriorating the consistency, and will make it appear as if it’s running or ‘melting’. You can solve this by removing some of the water in your palette, just lift your paper off the sponge, wring the sponge out a little, and see how your paints go after that.
How do I clean paint stains off the palette paper, sponge, or container?
Dried paint or staining won’t affect the process so its not worth worrying too much about it. Even if your acrylic paper is heavily stained with paint, once it has dried out, it won’t influence your colour mixes. If you wanted to clean the sponge, it’s quite durable and can be put it in the washing machine if necessary. We don’t advise using bleach to clean out any part of the palette.
