Palettes & Painting Knives

Palettes hold paint (something has got to do it) - and come in either flat or welled. A flat palette is for paints that don't move around - like oils and heavy body acrylics, that are scraped and mixed by the artist into piles of color. A welled palette holds your wet colors into discreet portions, so the colors don't intermingle.

Palette knives (sometimes called painting knives) help you mix a heavy body paint on a flat palette or quickly build an impasto directly on a canvas. They are good for scraping too, but not sharp enough to scrape your skin.