[Scriptoris] Help w/brown paint! :o)

[Elaine]

Greetings to Deanna and others from HL Lete Bithespring.

Sometimes, it depends on the amount of factory-added glycerine, other  
times, the amount of filler and the kind that helps in deterring or  
instigating the drying out of a paint.  I find the binder also  
influences the drying time.

Hints: 	1. Seal your tubes in those smaller freezer level plastic  
"baggies." ------or
		2. Squirt the paint into the leftover protector-top of a sports top  
of bottled water (the little semi-clear thing covering the pop-up  
top). Don't worry about its drying out, and just pretend to be a  
Japanese sumi-e master and drop distilled water on it to soften the  
dried paint up prior to use, meanwhile having an assistant make you  
some lovely tea to relax with and do some meditation while the paint  
softens. ---------------or
		3. Get a medical lab friend to "liberate" a one-piece, soft-plastic  
dropper like blood samples are held in and sealed.  Suck the liquid  
paint into the tube and flame the open tip until it seals. When you  
want to paint with that particular mixture again, just scissor the  
melted tip off and you are good to go. Years ago, I ordered a box of  
them from a medical supply, and the least I could order was 500!!  
(No, I don't still have any, or you could have some. That was a long  
time ago.)

		I used to do that for commercial jobs when the client wanted a  
particular color matched and then came back later for more work in  
that color. The added bonus was that the old color was still wet and  
when I mixed additional batches, I didn't have to wait for each trial  
stroke to dry, to see if it matched a dried sample of the first  
batch. (You know, of course, that wet paint changes color when it  
dries.) Made things a lot faster, matching wet to wet. The trick is  
to record just what you mixed and in what proportions, so you only  
have to tinker with "the wheel" a bit and not have to re-invent  
it.......

Concerning using brown colors? Personally, I like mixing Prussian  
Blue and Burnt Sienna. In gradations, I can get as cool a black or as  
warm a black as I like. If the work is to be on warmer paper, I will  
go warmer black; for the knock-your-eye-out white papers, I go with a  
cooler black to get maximum contrast, almost to the point of "bling".  
(That's another of those professionally-subtle, painterly pieces of  
trivia I resurrect now and then.)

Aren't colors one of the most enjoyable----and maddening----- things  
an artist deals with? (Have you ever put two white eggs on a white  
plate and looked at the shocking color where the eggs touch?)

Lete
When painting the faces of young persons... use the yolk of the egg  
of a city hen, because they have lighter yolks than those of country  
hens. (Cennino Cennini, 1370-1440)
..................................................

> Like lots of others, I love Winsor & Newton Designer's Gouache.
>
> I've noticed for a long time, whenever I seem to buy a tube of
> brownish paint--- Vandyke Brown, Venetian Red, etc-- they seem to dry
> out extremely quickly, so that I only get a few uses out of a regular
> 14 mL tube.
>
> Am I just really clumsy about recapping my brownish-paint tubes? Did I
> accidentally buy a batch of old paint and maybe I just need to try a
> different vendor? Or do others have that problem with certain kinds of
> colors drying out on them?
>
> I mix a lot of my colors, of course-- but it's nice having those
> shortcuts available, and very disappointing when you pick up a tube
> with a looming deadline and discovering it's dead. :o)
>
> Thanks!
> -Deanna
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