An Artist’s Refrigerator

An Artist’s Refrigerator

Yes, you are seeing inside my refrigerator – paint pots just below the chicken salad.  It’s a trick I was taught by Chery Baird, my lovely art teacher, to save those leftover custom mixed acrylic paint colors.

I never quite mix the right amount, especially when I am working on a series, which is why I wind up with those little “palette cleanser” paintings before I feel I can move on.

Seal up the paint (those are little Rubbermaid pots), spritz with a little water from time to time, and store them in the fridge.  I’ve had them last for months, which is so much better than having them dry out and get thrown away or saved as paint “skins” I never get around to using.

Good news, no waste.  Bad news, I’m kind of ready to let go and move on to another color scheme, but there are all of these lovely paints still wanting to be used.   Good news, I can always use them as a base to  mix another color – it’s not so hard to turn a green to a blue or a neutral, or really anything.  So, no bad news.

Palette Cleansers

Palette Cleansers

I’ve finally finished by 10 painting series based on a color palette inspired by the Villa La Contessina in Sorrento, Italy.

Now, I was taught to mix a lot of my own colors, so that means I have little pots, lots of little pots, because when you do ten paintings you will never get exactly the right amount mixed and there will be lots of little variations.

So, though I’m kind of ready to move on, I’m drawn to using what’s left on my brushes after a session or in my pots at the start of a session to create these little “palette cleansers” – just playing, really, with color and marks and little 3×3, 4×4, or 5×5 off cuts that are lying around.

Here are a couple more, and you can see others over on instagram @therestofmytime

100/100 in the Can

100/100 in the Can

I finished it!  One of those 100 day Instagram projects done and dusted.  I decided to use this project to experiment with gouache – one of those things I had in my stash but had never used.  As you can see on the left, a little gouache goes a long way.  I started with full tubes, and 100 mini-paintings later I still have most of it left, so while it was a success in term of experimentation and persistence, it didn’t do much to empty out my art closet.

Part two of the stash busting mission was also kind of a bust.  I have a huge stack of report covers from back in the day when every consulting report was printed out over and over again.  The paper quality is great, and one side is blank, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to recycle.  The printed sides were all painted purple, my numerology color the the year 2022, and I cut 100 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 pieces.  It worked great, but the stack of report covers doesn’t seem to have diminished by much.

As a learning experience, though, the whole thing was a great success.  Working with the size and medium and color scheme parameters I set myself allowed me to learn a lot about what I feel drawn to create and how to work with the gouache – not nearly as uncontrollable and more luscious colors.

Having said that, I’m not inclined to keep going with this one, but after a break I think I’ll pick another goal, maybe a 30 day one this time, starting in June.