Saving the Crimson
Art isn’t always about creating something beautiful. There are art events that are not creative or exciting. Cleaning and maintenance are mundane to say the least, but a necessary part of the process, and sometimes just a messy disaster. Let me tell you about Crimson. Alizarin is one of my favorite paint colors. It is a deep, cool, transparent, staining red. It makes gorgeous skin tones, intense purples and lavenders, and is perfect for so many flowers, skies, fabric.
It was time. I spent the morning cleaning up my palette, and putting way tubes of paint. I found a tube of Sennelier oil Alizarin Crimson. It was kind of a “spendy” tube of paint and I really love the hue of that particular Alizarin. The plastic cap was cracked and oil had been leaking out, so I decided to use one of those metal tubes you buy to save a color you make, to save the Alizarin. In case you are not familiar with those tubes, you can buy a box of them. They come with a plastic screw lid and the bottom is open. So you fill the tube from the bottom with the paint and, with a needle nose pliers, you press the bottom closed and roll it up to seal the tube. Easy enough… I’ve done it a dozen times.
Since I’ve already hinted that there might be a disaster, you've already figured this “fill” didn’t go well, so let me fill you in on the "gory" details. I insert the top of the Sennelier tube into the bottom of the new tube and I squeeze the paint from one tube into the other. Easy peasy!!! I roll the old tube up as I go so I am not wasting a bit of that precious Alizarin and the new tube is filled. So now I just have to close the bottom.
I can’t find my really good skinny needle nose pliers, so I grabbed a pair out my husband’s toolbox. As I grip the bottom of the new tube with the pliers and squeeze it closed, I notice that these pliers have a little metal ridge near the tip. And said ridge has punctured a small hole in the thin and pliable metal tube. Alizarin is oozing from the puncture. For those of you not familiar with Alizarin, as I said above, it is a very transparent, oily, staining, bluish red paint. I have to stop to clean up the pliers, my hands and the tube from the oozing red paint. I try a new tact, and switch to my regular pliers. I am going to squeeze the end of the tube along the folded bottom to stop the leak, and roll the rest with my fingers just far enough to get beyond the puncture.
I give the edge a slight squeeze with the pliers, and unfortunately am a little too far in. I have punctured the tube, again. A larger puncture, this time, that didn’t just ooze paint but exploded it onto the floor. The pliers are covered with Alizarin, and it is running down the tube and my hand. I have just uttered a rather loud obscenity, and my husband comes running to the studio, sees blood red running down my hand, a glob of blood red on the floor and the trash can full of bloody paper towels. You can recreate that scene as you will. And I will not be repeating here what he had to say, but it had to do with the artistic mind, common sense, and leaving his tools alone.
So a word to the wise for all of the artists reading this, before you replace a lid on any oil paint tube, take a half a minute and wipe any excess paint off the top before replacing the lid. This will not only keep your paint from drying out or leaking oil, but will keep your lids from cracking and breaking, and is a much easier way to save those expensive oil paints!!
