the pigment to paint principle.

This is an old idea of mine, but i had a moment tonight where it appeared unusually lucid to me, and when one of my particularly clever social compatriots mentioned he would be appropriating it anon, i figured I'd better put it up here, Just For The Record. (Bear with me, i have so few moments of being honored with "appropriative-worthy" remarks)
One of the things I Hate, and never know what to do with, is this prominent evidence in the world that there seems to be a ratio of one in ten of treasure to dross.
That is, out of every ten drawings I do, one is worthwhile. Of every 20 people I find myself in classes with (when I've been in school), 18 of them are (what we called tonight) "dullards", TWO are Treasures.
Of every day I work, frequently 7 of 9 hours are spent doing what I would think of as bullshit, and two hours are Fruitful (That last statistic isn't always true, I've been doing much better in that department, i think)
ANYHOW.

The walls in my apartment (some of them) are crimson red and ochre orange. In both cases, I went to the paint shop, the man behind the counter took two gallons of meagre white "base" paint, squirted less than two ounces of pigment into them, shook them up for ten minutes, and lo and behold, i have two gallons of colour to cover my walls with.

This is how it works.
This is the formula.
Two squirts pigment, two gallons paint.
No more of each, no less.
Well shaken. Properly applied. Voila.
And though I worry (frequently) that my life is nothing but gallons and gallons (and Gallons) of base, there are moments of pigment that (i sincerely hope) are creating something lovely of it. Not to mention the fact that without the base, i'd have a lovely spot of colour, about 1" by 1", with which to cover the walls of my whole apartment.
Base is fine.
Good base.
Necessary base.