Days of Frustration

[Artyczar]

Ever have one of those days?

Today has been like other days I've had in the past, where I've tried to find the perfect background color that (I thought) was in my head. I've mixed paint together and failed to get it right three times. I HATE wasting expensive oil paint! I've made a muddy pink, a muddy sand color, and an orange that just looked exactly like the skin tones of one of my figures in the painting. I think I need to settle on a yellow or a gray, or take a damn picture of it and play with it in Photoshop for god sake! Why didn't I think of that hours ago??? On top of that, I flicked a giant goop of brown paint onto the nice carpet in my office/studio room with a palette knife, which I never do. It looked like a poop! Why is this happening?

...It's probably because I haven't eaten today!



Ever have one of those days?

 

[snoball]

Scoop the paint out of your carpet and clean it first, then go about the next task at hand. Yes, play in photoshop and it will tell you the color you want. Eat! Then settle the old brain down and go about the rest of your day.

 

[brianvds]

It's been like that for me for the past thirty years, so I can relate and sympathize.

 

[stlukesguild]

Arty... who doesn't have one of those days? One? I truly sympathize with you with regard to having gotten paint on your carpet. I know just how neat you are as an artist most days while I am the exact opposite. I find ways of getting colors on my good clothes that I wasn't even using. I know how you feel about wasting paint after repeatedly mixing a color that isn't at all what you envisioned. I can't count the number of times I have done that when mixing up a big pile of color... after for the background. Sometimes, I end up saving the color ... adding a bit more red to it... and using it for primer or the ground-layer on later paintings.

 

[Donna T]

Sorry about the poop goop! I just today picked up an ugly - but like-new- carpet from Facebook Marketplace for $10 so I can protect the carpet under my easel for when I drop a fully loaded brush with oil or acrylic paint. Poop goop happens! Your muddy pinks and sands might be good for toning a new canvas!

 

[JStarr]

I am sorry it is Monday in your world- they do happen, you know, to everyone.

Can't fix your colour issue- take it into PS and good luck. I usually go with a grayed lavender-pink, or a green & lavender, then lean it in spots as necessary. But you don't work like me, so work like you. If you were thinking like you, would you keep trying to hit on it by luck, or take it into PS?

Carpet: Clean it first, as well as possible, then consider the solution upon which we settled: High quality carpet squares. The good ones are marvelously textured, and go in much smoother than a roll of carpet. The BONUS! is, if you fling poop-paint onto the carpet, you can simply pull up the now-offensive square of carpet, and replace it with a new square.

Is it just that easy? <insert STAPLES button here> Yes, it is just that easy.

Amazing stuff. In my studio it is a tweed-ish pattern, gray-blue and dark gray, and under my easel I have a thick office chair mat. It's great, 'cause I don't care what happens to it.

Go eat something, have a cup of tea or glass of wine or whatever helps your shoulders lower, and get on with life.

Happy Monday!

 

[Terri]

Ever have one of those days?

Today has been like other days I've had in the past, where I've tried to find the perfect background color that (I thought) was in my head. I've mixed paint together and failed to get it right three times. I HATE wasting expensive oil paint! I've made a muddy pink, a muddy sand color, and an orange that just looked exactly like the skin tones of one of my figures in the painting. I think I need to settle on a yellow or a gray, or take a damn picture of it and play with it in Photoshop for god sake! Why didn't I think of that hours ago??? On top of that, I flicked a giant goop of brown paint onto the nice carpet in my office/studio room with a palette knife, which I never do. It looked like a poop! Why is this happening?

...It's probably because I haven't eaten today!



Ever have one of those days?

Have I ever had one of those days?!?

Remember me posting this?

The culprit: a very expensive Sennelier oil pastel stick! Or should I say: what was left of one.

On white carpet, just to add to that good-time feel.

It did come off with upholstery cleaner. After a damn hour. I feel ya!

 

[Artyczar]

Thanks everyone! You are all so supportive! I was able to move on, and believe it or not, those Lysol disinfectant wipes removed the paint out of the carpet pretty damn good!

I finally got a good color. It is a light-ish color gold and it works with the drapes in the painting. Now, my only frustration is that I can't do anything further on the piece because I have to wait for that yellow to dry before I can really touch anything else on it. But knowing my impatience, I may try anyway, which may or may not screw it up.

Thanks again!

Would love to hear more horror stories. It makes me feel like I'm not so alone! Ha ha.

 

[WFMartin]

Well, just this afternoon, I had just laid out my palette of oils, and while I was involved in adjusting something on my palette, I flipped my palette off my lap, and it landed, paint side-down, on the carpet of my studio ( a spare bedroom, that has become my studio). Fortunately, the only paint to be dislodged from the palette was Ultramarine Blue. CRAP! I did my best to pick it up from the carpet with a paper towel, moistened with OMS, and that worked, for the most part, but I was left with this huge blob of "blue", as I attempted to "scrub" the area with my OMS-laden paper towel. I just figured I'd allow it to go as it was, being that it is an old carpet, and such.

However, once I'd finished painting, and I was cleaning my brushes, I wondered what effect my Zote Soap (that I use for cleaning my brushes) would have on the affected area of the carpet. So, I scrubbed that area with Zote Soap, (a laundry, bar soap), and mopped the resulting suds with a paper towel. Now, several hours later, I cannot even see where the paint color had been dropped on the carpet.

This brings to mind a statement I used to tell my oil painting students, regarding the definition of "tinting strength". I used to offer as an example the idea that if you had a 10' x 12' white carpet, and you mistakenly dropped a pea-sized glob of Thalo Blue on that carpet, and attempted to wipe it up by using solvent on a rag or towel, that within a few minutes, you would have created an entire, Thalo Blue carpet! THAT is an example of "high tinting strength".

But, that analogy seemed to have dissolved, in this case, because the color actually did get eliminated. Of course, I applied soap to it, after the initial dissolving with OMS. And, it was NOT Thalo Blue!

 

[snoball]

Well, just this afternoon, I had just laid out my palette of oils, and while I was involved in adjusting something on my palette, I flipped my palette off my lap, and it landed, paint side-down, on the carpet of my studio ( a spare bedroom, that has become my studio). Fortunately, the only paint to be dislodged from the palette was Ultramarine Blue. CRAP! I did my best to pick it up from the carpet with a paper towel, moistened with OMS, and that worked, for the most part, but I was left with this huge blob of "blue", as I attempted to "scrub" the area with my OMS-laden paper towel. I just figured I'd allow it to go as it was, being that it is an old carpet, and such.

However, once I'd finished painting, and I was cleaning my brushes, I wondered what effect my Zote Soap (that I use for cleaning my brushes) would have on the affected area of the carpet. So, I scrubbed that area with Zote Soap, (a laundry, bar soap), and mopped the resulting suds with a paper towel. Now, several hours later, I cannot even see where the paint color had been dropped on the carpet.

This brings to mind a statement I used to tell my oil painting students, regarding the definition of "tinting strength". I used to offer as an example the idea that if you had a 10' x 12' white carpet, and you mistakenly dropped a pea-sized glob of Thalo Blue on that carpet, and attempted to wipe it up by using solvent on a rag or towel, that within a few minutes, you would have created an entire, Thalo Blue carpet! THAT is an example of "high tinting strength".

But, that analogy seemed to have dissolved, in this case, because the color actually did get eliminated. Of course, I applied soap to it, after the initial dissolving with OMS. And, it was NOT Thalo Blue!

Thalo Blue is like the pink Energizer bunny, it just keeps going and going, in fact, NEVER turn your back on it!

 

[bethany]

(Art-adjacent embarrassing mess story)
I was attending a life-drawing workshop with a friend and we were staying with her friend. The house was very posh and had lots of white carpet (no shoes allowed). The friend had apologised for spilling talcum powder in the black bathroom. I was thinking - well I need to be extra careful to not make a mess because that did not go down well.
I was using charcoal in the workshop and I like to draw in bare feet. I would slip on my sandals at the end of the day to go back to the friend's house. So I took off my sandals to come into the house- grabbed my shower things and walked up the hall to the bathroom to have a shower. As I came out of the shower- I looked back to see distinct black footprints from my room to the bathroom. The home owner grabbed carpet cleaner and got to work to try to remove the black footprints. So embarrassing! She would not accept any help- but she did manage to get the marks out.

 

[Artyczar]

That's a good one bethany. At least the marks came out.

 

[Marc]

This before I had a studio. I can't remember what I was painting but the cat came in and put her foot on the palette right into the thalo green tint! What I SHOULD have done was calmly pick the cat up but instead I felt compelled to go; "NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!" As I chased a panicked cat running sideways around the room and soft furnishings. Took me half a day to get rid of the vivid little green footprints.