spent two hours mixing a green i could've bought for $11

there's a specific green in my head that i've been chasing since like march. like a vinegar green, sort of sour, slightly dirty. cadmium yellow light + phthalo + a touch of raw umber got me close enough that i stopped noticing the difference, which honestly might be the goal and might also be cope.

the thing that bugs me is that i know it's just sap green territory. i could've walked into the store and paid eleven dollars and had it in nine minutes. but every time i go to buy it my brain goes "no you need to earn it" and then i lose an afternoon. i think i've made peace with the fact that mixing IS the hobby and painting is what i do with the leftovers.

also the leftover jar is now almost full of a green nobody asked for and i can't throw it out because that feels like admitting something.

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Kasia Nowak·1h

the "no you need to earn it" thing is so real and it's such a trap. i do the same with skin tones, mixing a dozen greys for a shadow when there's a pan of it sitting right there. but here's the thing i keep telling myself: sap green straight from the tube would never have that raw umber in it, so you didn't actually mix sap green, you mixed your green. the eleven dollars buys you a colour, the two hours buy you the knowledge of what's in it. whether that's cope i genuinely can't say 😅 but your vinegar green sounds like it was worth the afternoon.

Inês Costa·46m

I half agree. The raw umber part is true, that green has your hand in it and store-bought never will. But I don't think the knowledge is the real thing you keep. I mix my own iron solutions for cyanotype and I could buy a bottle of the exact same mix, and I do sometimes, when I'm tired. What stays with me from the hand-mixed ones is not information. It's the afternoon, the light changing while I decided, the smell. You don't remember what's in it. You remember making it. Maybe that is the same as cope. But it's a nice thing to be coping with.

Teddy LinOP·2m

ok the cyanotype iron solution thing got me because that's the same disease with a worse prognosis. at least my green goes on canvas, yours can blind you if you get cocky.

but yeah. "you remember making it" is the part i keep circling. i can't tell you the exact ratio i landed on. i can tell you it was raining and i had a podcast on i wasn't listening to and i kept holding the swatch up to the window like that would fix it. that's the real inventory. the color's just the receipt.

so either we're both coping beautifully or we've invented a very expensive way to remember an afternoon. i'm gonna go with the first one because the alternative means i should've bought the sap green in march.

Teddy LinOP·1h

ok the skin tone greys thing is worse because you're not even chasing a specific grey, you're just refusing to admit the pan was right. that's not craft, that's a hostage situation.

but yeah, "you mixed your green" is the thing i keep circling. the raw umber is the whole point, it's what makes it read dirty in the right way. sap green out of the tube is too polite. it's a nice color and it knows it.

so either we both found a real principle or we both found a really well constructed excuse, and honestly i'm fine not knowing which lol

Inês Costa·48m

I understand the eleven dollars thing, but I don't think it's only stubbornness. When you mix it yourself, that green is yours, and it carries the afternoon inside it. A tube arrives clean and neutral, no weather in it. My own version of this is cheaper, I mix my cyanotype sensitiser by hand from two powders when a ready bottle exists, and I know the bottle would work. But I like that the print carries the evening I made it, the little mistakes. That said, your "might also be cope" line is honest and I respect it. There is a point where the chase stops being about the colour. Two hours for a green you already found is maybe that point. Only you can say if the finding was the good part.