Adam Savage just destroyed a half hour of my life by linking to this Paint Mixing tumblr. It’s mesmerizing. It’s just close-up videos of different colors of paint being mixed together, with different movements and different palette tools. I found it pleasantly soothing.
The comments are also pleasant. People apparently have favorite palette knives and color combinations. People are weird. They can also be nice.
Can’t comment…. those colours….I remember paying three dollars a tab for this…thank you internet.
I have to confess that, as I watched it, I developed preferences, too. For some reason, I find the rake tool irritating, and like the circular tool best, and I’d rather not watch the ones with glitter. Too gritty.
This is visual ASMR (which I realize is a pseudo-scientific word; nevertheless, the effect is similar).
penalfire@#3:
Yup!!!!
ASMR videos are super cool. I’m not sure I buy all the neurobabble behind them, but there are some wonderfully relaxing pieces out there.
Yeah, whatever they are, they are awesome. The effect that ASMR refers to
is real, though. I feel the “tingles.” Marina Konnikova dismissed it as
“bullshit,” but she clearly does not respond to these physically.
These are especially great in foreign languages.
PZ’s post reminds me of an ASMR classic, Bob Ross painting tutorials:
Meh… paint.
Ink, now, *that* is porn.
The paint videos make me feel good. I don’t know what it is with watching people do things like these (mixing paints, carving wood, cooking, rolling cigarettes etc.), but it’s something.
ASMR is one thing. Another thing are old training films/videos. Some training videos might have even been made in such a way that they will give you a warm, fuzzy feeling, I guess.
Okay, this is probably saying too much about me, but did anyone else get dessert vibes from watching some of those? Like raspberry mousse kind of vibes?
Welp, I enjoyed that way more than I thought I would. It did bring up something that has puzzled me, namely: what do artists who mix their own colours do when they run out? It strikes me that it would be incredibly hard to mix exactly the same shade again should they need more. Mind you, my ignorance of this is creationist levels of profound…
#6: Now I’m thinking there has to be calligraphy porn out there: close-up videos of flawless brush strokes, different kinds of ink on different kinds of paper.
PZ, there are thousands of calligraphy ASMR videos on YouTube, that are just like you say, with all kinds of brush strokes and ink and paper. Closeups of calligraphy with no speech or audio except the sounds of the process.
So pretty.
Big asmr fan here. There’s no real understanding of what’s going on, but it’s definitely something, and probably something entirely in the realm of what we already know – different sounds affect each person differently, synanthesia is a known phenomenon, etc.
#8: I did get food vibes, but a bit different from yours. I was reminded of mixing ingredients, like stirring egg yolks into cookie dough or whisking butter into a sauce.
Maybe Cas should try a mini whisk for paint mixing…
FossilFishy: It’s very difficult to mix exactly the same colour (in any colour medium – my experience is mostly dying textiles) unless you measure carefully, and remember to record the formulae. Having to measure and note each tiny addition definitely reduces the spontaneity of the process. Even then, you need an accurate way of measuring, and your replication is only as good as the tolerances of your system (eg your scales, the consistency of your standard preparations). If you’re lucky, the variation between batches is not noticable; generally, you need to make more than you need for a single piece to start with, and use up the leftovers of each batch in something where variation is either disguised by the design, or used as a positive feature. This applies to commercial products too: paints, pigments and dyes are usually fairly reliable (except ones from plants or animals!), but commercially dyed textiles vary visibly between batches (which is why yarns, threads etc have dye-lot codes as well as colour codes).