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Business consultants have amended an old saying. It’s now “perfect practice makes perfect.” In other words, build good habits; don’t just practice bad ones.

Virtually all professional artists use plenty of paint. Most amateurs don’t. I see it all the time. The student squeezes a fingernail’s worth onto his palette. The paint is rapidly used up, leaving just a stain. But the student still vainly tries to scrub some color into the tooth of the canvas with nothing on his brush. It just doesn’t work!

I tell my pupils the obvious: “you can’t paint without paint!” But old habits die hard.  Why? Maybe it’s the “children are starving in Europe” theme that our moms used to coax us into eating our vegetables. [The proverbial European children may be starving but they’re not starving for paint!]

My guess is that in the beginning, we think that paint is too expensive.  Paint is not very expensive compared to your time. But even if you don’t buy that argument, here are a few things you can do to build good paint habits:

1. When you’re done, scrape your unused paint onto Saran wrap and save it in the freezer for your next time.It'll keep for months.
2. Use student grade paint (not optimal, but better than a starved palette.)
3. Try the Zorn palette (Permanent Red Medium, Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre, and white). All the colors but red are cheap (and Rembrandt Permanent Red Medium has such strong tinting strength that you use very little of it). By the way, that palette makes an unbelievable range of beautiful colors.
4. If all else fails, just do it! (In the words of Nike.)

Here's the palette of one very well-known artist as he mixes some flesh tones.

When I was in art school I was told “starve yourself…don’t starve your palette!” When I finally took this to heart, my painting improved; yours will too.