I love glass palettes. They are simply awesome for oil painting. I recently bought a new glass palette with my birthday money and I love it even more than my last one. There wasn’t really anything wrong with my last one except its shape. It was in perfectly useable condition despite numerous scratches and I would have continued to use it except I was really getting sick of sticking my elbows in paint. You can see in the photo that the white and black are relatively low and in prime elbow territory. My new palette is a rectangle with means I can put all of my main paint piles along the top and I have more than twice the space to mix now.

 

 

A lot of artist use glass from picture frames as their palettes, but I definitely prefer to use tempered glass palettes. Since they last for years and years, the cost ends up being negligible in the long run. It’s safer to use since the edges are finished and if it breaks it’ll break into little cubes instead of shards. Plus it tends to be thicker glass which is more durable than thin picture frame glass. It’s essentially the same glass as the side windows of a vehicle which usually last for years and years with a fair amount of abuse.

 

 

I’ve had my first palette for well over 10 years. It has been used and abused and it still is in pretty decent shape aside from the scratches; and even with the scratches it’s still useable. The shape is just inefficient and ultimately obnoxious. Since I like color options and I want them available all the time, the paint piles end up curving across the top and down the sides. I’ve dipped my elbows in paint a ridiculous number of times and it gets old really fast. I definitely don’t recommend a classic palette shape for a glass palette. It’s way too heavy to hold for long periods of time and if you’re holding it all the time anyway with your Hulk hands, you’re bound to drop it and break it. Although, I have dropped my palette a few times and it hasn’t broken yet. So I imagine you get a handful of drops before it actually breaks.

 

 

I store my palette in a Masterson Palette Box. I used to keep it in the freezer, but I ran out of freezer space. I now keep little cotton balls soaked in clove oil in the box which helps keep the paint from drying out too quickly. It honestly works pretty much as well as the freezer method. Now I don’t have to sacrifice food space to this giant box and I don’t have to wait for my paint to defrost.

The only color that seems to dry out is burnt umber and that is to be expected as it is the fastest drying color on my palette. As an added bonus, the clove oil smells great every time I open my palette box. I highly recommend the Masterson Palette Box in addition to a glass palette. It even has little feet on the inside of the lid that will prevent your palette from sticking to the lid if it is flipped over, which is bound to happen eventually. My husband flipped mine without even thinking about it and it was perfectly fine. I’ve been using the box for a little over a year and couldn’t be more satisfied with it.

 

Glass Palette Pros:

It’s extremely easy to clean with a paint scraper.

The hard non-porous surface means no color contamination, if ultra pure mixes are your thing.

No need to clean palette after each paint session. Dry paint is only marginally harder to scrape off than wet paint.

 

Glass Palette Cons:

It’s heavy (you won’t want to hold it unless you have Hulk hands).

It scratches (to be expected when you scrape willy nilly at it with a dull razor blade year after year).

It can break (just don’t drop it).