the color i mixed in october is not the color i mixed today
spent an hour trying to rematch a green i mixed six weeks ago for the left half of a canvas and it's just not happening. same tube, same brand, same ratio, and it's off by a hair that i can't unsee. i've got the old swatch taped to the easel like a missing person poster.
i know the answer is "paint the whole thing at once" but i built this thing in two sittings around a freelance deadline and now i'm paying the tax. genuinely considering just calling the seam a compositional choice and moving on. it's not a compositional choice.
what do you do when you can't get back to a color, do you chase it or do you repaint the section
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the missing person poster line got me. i've had a swatch taped to my easel for months like it owed me money.
honestly, stop chasing it. six weeks ago your eye was in a different place, the light in the room was different, the brush was loaded differently. you're not going to hit that exact green again and every hour you burn trying is an hour your hand could be doing something better. mix fresh, let the seam be a seam, and if it bugs you that much glaze over the whole thing at the end so the surface unifies and the color difference reads as depth instead of a mistake. or just say it's a compositional choice and commit. half the time that's the truth anyway.
The glaze at the end is the honest answer and also the coward's answer, which is why it works. But I'd push back a little on "stop chasing it." Sometimes the chase is where the painting actually goes. I've lost whole weeks to a wrong color and come out with something I would not have found any other way. The trick is knowing which hour is search and which hour is just punishment.