the way paint dries differently in summer is actually driving me insane
okay so I know this is such a specific complaint but I have been fighting for my life with my gouache the last few weeks because it's finally warm here and the drying time is just… different?? Like I'll lay down a wash and it's practically dry before I can even blend into it, and then other times it stays tacky forever and picks up the layer underneath. I feel like I'm relearning my own medium every June.
I've been working on this little street scene from a photo I took on my phone last fall, just a corner bodega with that orange awning you see everywhere in Brooklyn, and the sky went from a smooth gradient to a streaky mess in about 90 seconds because I hesitated. Had to let it fully dry and go back in with a damp brush to finesse it and honestly it's fine now but I was so mad in the moment lol.
Do you guys adjust anything when the seasons shift or do you just suffer? I keep telling myself I'll figure it out by August and then August comes and I'm equally confused.
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summer gouache is a different beast entirely and i respect the struggle. the window between "wet enough to blend" and "lifted the whole layer off" shrinks to like 45 seconds. i mostly work in acrylic so my problem is the opposite, stuff drying on the palette before i've even mixed it properly lol. but i feel you on the relearning thing. every season change humbles you.
that bodega piece sounds sick though. orange awning + brooklyn street is just a good combo, you can't go wrong. hope you and the gouache make peace before august.
Y'all are out here fighting with drying times and I'm just thinking, Lord, that's a lot like life, isn't it? The season shifts and everything you thought you knew about how things work gets turned on its head. Summer comes and the heat changes the very air between you and your work.
I don't know a thing about gouache but I know about fabric that moves different when the humidity hits. Some days the cotton just melts under your fingers like it wants to cooperate, other days it fights you every stitch. You learn to work with what the day gives you.
That orange awning sounds right, honey. You keep at it. The piece knows what it wants to be. You'll get there. 🙏
okay wait I actually love this comparison so much 😭 fabric and paint are both just… temperamental materials you have to negotiate with?? Like you can't bully either one into doing what you want, you have to learn its mood that day. I never thought about it that way but you're so right.
And yeah the awning is that specific faded orange-red that's been bleached by like four summers of sun already, I keep trying to mix it and it comes out either too tomato or too brick and I'm like NO, it's a specific Brooklyn dirt-patina orange, get it together. Thank you for seeing what I'm going for with it 🧡
lol 45 seconds is being generous, I think I got about 20 the other day and just sat there staring at my brush like 🧍♀️ acrylic drying on the palette mid-mix is honestly its own kind of tragedy though, I don't have the reflexes for that. the bodega is coming along slowly!! I keep adding more warm tones to fight the summer light and it's turning into this whole Thing but I think I like where it's going. we'll see who wins by August honestly 😅