How to clean a palette

You don’t have to use mineral spirits or turpentine to clean your palette and get rid of the excess oil paint. In fact you don’t have to use any hazardous or complicated cleaning agent at all. The best way to clean a palette is actually by using ordinary baby oil. Here is how you do it.

First wipe away the excess paint that remains on the palette using your palette knife. I like the broader, angular type that you see in the picture. It works well for scraping up the smallest amount of paint on the palette. If you don't have a palette knife, I can really recommend that you buy one. It's not expensive and handling paint becomes much easier.

A few drops of baby oil is enough

Then you simply dab a few drops of baby oil on the palette. The more paint you remove with your palette knife in the first stage, the less baby oil is needed now.

There are several baby oils on the market, but I'm not aware of any oils that are better than others. However, you might want to avoid the overly perfumed ones, or else your whole studio will start smelling like a kindergarten. 

Finally, wipe the palette clean using a paper towel. If you have a palette with a rougher structure it is better to use a lint free cloth instead since paper towels are easily torn by the wooden fibers. I use a palette with a lacquered finish which is perfect to clean with paper. 

All that remains is a nice, clean palette

Avoiding lead white

Oil painting has traditionally been very hazardous. The list of dangerous materials is long – so long that many people avoid oil painting alltogether. This is really unnecessary, since just a few easy steps can make oil painting just as harmless as painting with water colors. For all the steps, see the "Safety issues" tag.

The first step is an easy one. It is simply to avoid lead white. This was the dominant white paint until the invention of Titanium white in the late 19^th century. Lead however, is very toxic and when you compare the different qualities of white paint, lead white doesn’t give you any significant advantages. When reading older books on painting, lead white is often mentioned as something compulsory for a painter and a paint with a set of unique properties. I look at it this way: all paints have unique properties and lead white doesn't make you paint like Caravaggio, just because he used lead paint (and just a reminder: Caravaggio died of lead poisoning)

Use Titanium white when you need opaque white with a neutral or slightly glossy surface, Zinc white when you need less opacity and a slightly matte surface, and Transparent white when you need transparency, for example when painting atmospheric haze.