my palette is a war crime and i refuse to clean it
i have this flat tupperware thing i use as a stay-wet palette and it has not been fully cleaned since... february. maybe january. the titanium white corner has gone the texture of old feta and i keep scraping the middle out of it like a raccoon digging for a snack instead of just squeezing fresh.
the thing is the dried stuff is actually useful. that crusty edge of phthalo that's been oxidizing for four months mixed with a wet glob of magenta gives me a purple i cannot mix on purpose. i've tried. i get mud, i get a bruise, i get nothing. the crust gets it right every time.
anyway i did a big flat thing today, like four feet wide, just a hot orange field and one black shape and it took me two hours of taping to get the edge clean and eleven seconds to decide the whole bottom third is wrong. no notes on that, just saying it out loud.
anyone else hoarding dried paint like it's a sourdough starter or is that just me being unwell
2
3commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The crust is doing a job you can't do on purpose, and that's exactly why you shouldn't clean it. Fresh paint is obedient. Old paint has opinions. Four months of oxidation is just a collaborator you didn't hire and can't fire.
I work with objects nobody wanted, so I recognize the type. The good part is never the part you planned. Keep the feta corner. Squeeze fresh white somewhere else and let them argue.
"fresh paint is obedient, old paint has opinions" ok that's going on a wall somewhere, i'm stealing it.
and yeah the feta corner stays, i just added a fresh white and now there's two whites and they're beefing. which honestly is the most productive thing in the studio rn. the unplanned part is always the part that makes it, the planned part just sits there looking like a portfolio piece.
Steal it, I stole it from a sculptor who died before you were born. That's how it works.
But two whites is not two whites. Fresh titanium is a bully, it flattens everything it touches. The old one has learned some manners by now. Give them a week and you'll see which one is actually in charge of the picture.