Wild Hairs

A recommendation from somewhere in the past came to mind to use left-over paint to mix up good base color for a train layout.  So, with "free" paint available at the green boxes/trash collection site, why not give it a try.  Seems one problem is that most of paint was off-white!  Also, on this particular day, there were few choices.  Still, something with raw umber pigment might be a good start although it looked pretty much like tan -- also, a little light green, some gloss black, and a grey of some sort.

The mixture was a lot more grey than earth color, so some red and dark brown from the "house collection" was added to the mix.  Still looked a bit grey, but maybe it would mix up in some ground goop and turn out OK.

Before:

After:

Side note:  used blue tape within outline to see if that would help keep building footprint clear of ground goop; worked pretty well.

Before:

After:

OK, so color appears to be about the same, before AND after!!  But the "ground" now almost meets the level of the blacktop/road.  Maybe that's progress.

Think a dark, "professional" mixed color is better. . . .  Need to be pretty selective with "free" paint.

Interesting that mixed ground goop looked a bit different, as did the paint, itself: