I prepared today’s medium and took yesterday’s palette out of the butcher’s tray where I store it. (The rectangular palette is my workaday palette; I only use the traditional oval one to mix certain tones.) I use my workaday palette 2- or sometimes 3-days running before cleaning it. Even stored in the covered tray the colors dry after several days, especially the umbers. If I run out of a color, I simply replace it in the same spot.
After I prepare certain tones with my palette knife–cool and warm grays, for example–I generally mix colors with the brush right on the palette. That’s what all those squiggly blotches are. My medium is fast-drying so all of yesterday’s mixtures are dry and I can work right over them without worrying about them mixing into the fresh mixtures. If things get too busy, I can scrap off paint down to the glass and then keep going.
The small cup contains today’s preparation of medium. Usually, the small amount you see here is sufficient for a day’s work. The larger cup contains turpentine (left-hand) and thinner (right-hand).
Anyway, after I prepared everything, I was excited to start.