It’s nearly 50 years since my frugal art school days but I still hate to waste paint, even small amounts.

When I’m getting ready to clean out my container of palettes and mix new colors, I always smash the leftovers onto a paintable surface just to see what happens. Often I’ll find an image idea in the random blobs. Sometimes with a little extra effort, it becomes a small painting.

The colors for this one came from what I had put together for Empire of Grass. As so often happens, the earth tones (umbers and ochres) had spoiled but the blues and bright greens were fine.