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I finally figured out why no one wants my half-dried paint tubes
I kept trying to trade these old acrylic tubes that were all crusted at the tip, and people just ignored me at the last swap. Then this one lady told me to just cut the tube open and scoop the good paint into a little jar, so I did that with 3 tubes last night and they actually got claimed today. Anyone else have better luck giving away paint if you repackage it first?
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holly_williams16h ago
Oh for sure, @sarahhart, I feel you on that. It's so frustrating when you put in the work to repackage something and people still act like it's garbage. I've had the same thing happen with half-used paint sticks where I scraped them clean and nobody even looked my way. And hey, @maxb46, you're right that most crusted acrylics are salvageable, but honestly, even if the paint is good, people get weird about it looking dry around the edges. I think part of it is just that artists are picky about paint texture, so even a tiny bit of crust can make them nervous. It's a bummer because that paint is perfectly fine for layering or backgrounds, but you can't force people to trust it.
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At my last swap meet, there was a whole box of those half-dried tubes that nobody touched even after I cut them open and jarred them up. People just assume the paint is already contaminated or dried out no matter how you package it. Maybe your luck was just a fluke because three tubes is a pretty small sample size.
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