Guoache paints are most commonly used for commercial illustration and popular works. The origins of these paints, however, stem from medieval manuscript illumination, and they are used in 16th and 18th century miniature painting. The surface on which paints are mixed and prepared for use. The traditional palette is the oval or rectangle thumbhole palette. These were made of wood and held in one hand while painting with the other.
Modern palettes are usually either plastic or paper pads.
Picasso reportedly used newspaper for a palette and Matisse used dinner plates. Known outside of the United States as perspex , this is a patented name for a transparent, colorless thermoplastic resin. It is usually used as a substitute for glass, especially in framing works of art. Fluids used to dissolve or dilute oil paints and their mediums. Turpentine, a distillate of pine resin, is good for thinning paints but should not be used for cleaning brushes.