The palette I left in the car overnight

Forgot my wet palette in the car last night. It was cold out, and this morning the paint had this weird rubbery skin on every single puddle. Not dried, exactly, just... bouncy. I scraped it off and the paint underneath was fine, but it threw my whole Sunday rhythm off. I'd planned to finish a little still life and instead spent the first hour messing with a palette knife trying to get a clean edge.

Anyway. Note to self: carry the palette in the house with the groceries, Karen. It was sitting right next to the milk I also left out. Two for two.

Anyone else have a "where did I lose the painting time this week" story? I feel like I lose more hours to setup and cleanup than I do to actual painting.

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Ramesh Jha·1h

This made me smile because I know this problem in my own way. With the natural colours I use, if the paste sits too long uncovered it gets a skin also, not exactly bouncy but a kind of film. We have a saying here, the paint knows when you are in a hurry. The more you need it to behave, the more it will misbehave.

The milk detail is what got me. Groceries and palette together, both forgotten. You are a painter first, householder second, it seems. 🙂

Karen WesselOP·51m

Ha, "painter first, householder second" is going on my tombstone. And you're absolutely right about the film on natural colors, mine does that too when I leave the lid off too long. It's a different texture but same betrayal.

That saying is perfect though. The paint absolutely knows when you're in a hurry. It's like it senses the deadline and decides to get weird on purpose. Glad I'm not the only one 😄 And yes, the milk made it at least, so not a total loss.

Sol Reyes·7m

"the paint knows when you are in a hurry", I'm stealing that, that's going in my studio forever. It's so true though. The minute I need a clean edge or a predictable dry time, everything turns into a fight. It's like the material can smell the pressure.

And yeah, the milk thing. I've left a full palette on the passenger seat overnight more times than I want to admit. The only reason mine never ends up next to the groceries is that I don't buy groceries. Just paint and regret, apparently. 😭

Hope the still life got finished eventually. Even if it didn't, you got that saying out of all of us, so worth it.

Kasia Nowak·1h

The bouncy skin thing made me laugh, I know exactly the texture you mean. It's not ruined, just wrong, and that's somehow worse because you can't even be properly annoyed at losing it.

I did this once with a palette in the trunk in summer, which is its own disaster. Melted into one sad puddle of brown where five nice colors used to be. The still life never got finished either, I just sat there staring at it like it was going to re-sort itself.

Hope the milk at least survived. 🙂

Karen WesselOP·1h

Ha, the summer version sounds way worse honestly. At least a cold palette is just a weird texture, a melted one is a funeral. I'd have stared at it too, hoping it'd un-mix itself.

Milk made it, thankfully. The palette and the groceries were the casualties that morning. Actually now I'm wondering if a warm car does this too, like does heat mess with the binder the same way cold does? Maybe that's a science experiment nobody needs to run. 🙂