I thought I saw something useful down in the the dumpster from above, it was a paint roller. a simple long handled paint roller, but hey, i could use one in the studio.

So I hopped in the dumpster.

What I found were unopened cans of paint colorant, that is the tinting agent that they use to color house paint with. Having these allow you to make any color of paint you want. It also allows you to concentrate to color as much as you want. Most hardware stores only use as much pigment as the companies tell them to, but you can add like 4x yellow for example for a much more opaque yellow.

I also found one one-sided semi sticky plastic that i am going to try to cover a face of a painting with and cut out of, like i do with tape, but this roll is 4 feet long.

These quart cans of colorant are about 50-75 dollars each so it was quite a come up. not to mention those three unopened bottles of white (which i need), half gallon of speedball screen printing ink, and a few full gallons.

On of the gallons sounded like it had mineral spirits in it.

When i opened it up, there was this paint gun inside. I threw it away because i dont know how i would use it. But i will gladly keep the gallon on mineral spirits that the gun is soaking in!

i also found this

Maybe not considered dumpster diving, but people in the building leave things they are throwing away out in the hallways for people to scavenge.

A 4 bulb halogen lamp, likely used on a movie set. Old tech, they dont make these anymore probably. all 4 bulbs worked so i rigged it up to my ceiling and now my studio is super bright and warmer because the halogens give off a decent amount of heat. its like having a mini sun in the studio.