10 things you better not do when you work with colours

You might have guessed, I have done it all (not 7). And (!) some of this stuff has happened to the real professionals, too. I write this down since I do work with colours occasionally, and I love it. Well, writing about my 'I quit' experiences has brought up some of those old stories, but some of it is actually pregnancy-related, because I end up drawing more again, as I can draw anywhere, even in a hammock.

So, if drawing/painting has no appeal for you, this will be dead boring and you should jump directly to the jokes at the bottom of the entry.

1. Do not put your drink next to the can with turpentine or brush cleaner. The procedure then is usually as follows: you dunk your most expensive brush into your coffee and if you did not pay attention, you apply coffee to your painting. Alternatively, you grab your coffee mug, only to find out that you have turp or brush cleaner in your mouth.

So, the rule is: no food or drink where you paint.

2. If you have turp in your mouth  (which you should not; it is unhealthy), don't spit it against your nearly finished oil-painting. The painting will suffer a lot. Haha, try not to spit it out immediately :-)

3. Think twice before you agree to portrait someone you love. And sometimes cheating is the right thing to do with a picture.

4. Clean your hands carefully after drawing with charcoal and before touching hubby's business contracts.

5. Keep a complete set of old clothes that you take off when you leave the place where you paint. This is very important for your shoes, too. Cleaning red stains off the carpet can be hard work.

5.1 Do not ever try to change just a little bit in your picture, when you are wearing good clothes, or, even worse, your best dress. The following three things will surely happen: 1.the change in the picture will be bad and you have to undo it. 2.The dress will get dirty. 3.You'll  keep asking yourself how you could have been so stupid to play with your paint in your best dress, in the first place.

6. Don't phone when you have a big pot of paint standing next to you. If there is anything that can fall into it, it will.

7. No fire or excessive heat where you have turp or similar flammable substances !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want to try that.

8. In oil painting I have learned not to use black. One reason is connected to the old formulas they used for creating black oil colour. If applied, the time it took to dry was significantly different from that of other oil colours, which meant that the painting would have small, fine cracks from it. As far as I know, this is not true for modern black colours, but not using black had an appeal, because I don't like it. With charcoal that's different, I love charcoal.

9. Cooking lunch and drawing in the kitchen are no good friends. Therefore, do not even think about working next door while you are supposed to prepare lunch.

10. Not every hubby deems it funny if you draw him a black charcoal moustache while he is sleeping on the sofa.

art joke section

Recently someone nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre. However, after planning the crime, breaking in, evading security, getting out, and escaping with the goods, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such a foolish error, he replied, "I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the VanGogh."

 A convent was going to receive a visit by the Pope, so the mother superior wanted to get the place spruced up. She assigned two nuns to repaint the guest bedroom.

"Do a good job," she ordered, "and don't get any paint on your habits."

The nuns decided that the best way to not get paint on their clothes was to work in the nude. They had been painting for a couple of hours when there was a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" they asked.

"It's the blind man."

They figured that a blind man wouldn't be able to tell that they were naked, so they told him to come on in.

The door opened. "Hey, nice tits! Where do you want these blinds?"