Morning
Just a general question regarding the separation of acrylic paints when using a wet palette, the paints seem to be separating into the carrier/base and the paint color components after sitting for a while but not all brands that I’m using will do it. starting to think it may be an old paint thing with bottles that I have had for a couple of years.
Will get some photos of the paints this afternoon.
Cheers and thank you
I have observed that vallejo paints separate easily, andrea not so much. It seems that swirling
them together works if they haven’t been on the palette too long (less than a week).
I’ve seen the save with Vallejo especially if they are a bit thin. As @phil2015 said they can easily be remixed with a quick swirl. Just make sure they haven’t started drying or you can get little granules of the dried pigment like a skin in the mix
This happens to me with Vallejo paints- I find it can happen in minutes if you are diluting them for something like a glaze on the wet palette. Swirling them around will sort it out but leaving them too long will basically make them unusable. Other brands behave differently.
I don’t use a wet palette, but I do thin paints to make washes. Vallejo can start separating in minutes when diluted! Especially the earth-tones - it looks like the pigments and clay content don’t get along. Sadly the better acrylic lines like Pollyscale have been killed off…
Thanks for the feedback, vallejo are definitely the worst at it and some colors separate quicker than others.
Happy to see it’s just not me.
Cheers
I’ve used a wet palette with good success with both Vallejo and Gunze acrylics. Sounds to me like your palette may be too wet.
“Some” of my Vallejo paints will separate as mentioned, but not all of them. For example: Vallejo Olive Drab Primer (73.608) is a, repeat, repeat, repeat offender. There are others as well.
Note: Acrylic paints will keep in a wet palette for a “reasonable” amount of time, but not forever. I love using a wet palette when I’ve got a major painting session on tap. However, I use good ol’ mixing trays whenever I only need to paint a small part and/or the wet palette has been cleaned and put away.
On that note, I’ve found these small trays (washable) very handy to have around the workbench.
—mike 
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With Vallejo’s it ought to be mentioned that a wet pallet with the air line isn’t a good mix even though you can brush a lot of the airs easily. Not sure if this is maybe what you experienced as the Model Color and Model Air are a little different out of the bottles. I bought my first ones at Hobby Lobby and sometimes their selection is intermingled between the 2 lines and in a rush it’s easy to grab and go without paying to much attention especially if you’re not versed on how the designate the lines.