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So I ran out of gesso mid-priming a canvas tonight and instead of just going to bed like a normal person I read about making your own with rabbit skin glue and whiting. Which obviously I'm not doing because the thought of rendering animal glue in my kitchen makes me a little queasy AND my 8 year old would absolutely try to eat it. But I did mix some acrylic medium with plaster of Paris to see what happens and now there's a weird little test square drying on cardboard that I'll report back on like it matters. It probably won't be anything, but honestly the kitchen-table science is half the fun of this hobby. I've ruined two good wooden spoons and my husband has stopped asking questions. Anyone else ever actually bothered with homemade grounds or do we all just buy the tub?

The only wall in my house with decent natural light is the hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms. So that's where my easel lives. I get maybe 45 minutes of good light in the late afternoon before it shifts and everything I'm mixing starts to look wrong. I've gotten weirdly good at working fast in that window. Lay down the big shapes first, save the fine detail for the evening under the overhead light even if the colors are off, because I know from experience they'll read fine by morning. The kids step over the drop cloth like it's always been there. My husband hung a towel over the window on the bathroom door once and I nearly cried with gratitude. I tell myself someday I'll have a real studio but honestly I'd probably just end up painting in a different hallway.