A patient simulation of a freshly painted wall returning to a state of rest. Temperature and humidity really do change the dry time. There is no winning. There is only the wall.
Awarded for time genuinely spent watching. They persist between visits.
Indicative values only, for a nominal 12 m² wall at the stated conditions. For guidance only; subject to revision without notice.
An automatic record of all events observed at this station. Retained indefinitely.
The Emulsion Observatory will, on request, issue a formal certificate attesting to the wall's current condition. A certificate stamped Fully Cured is reserved for the truly patient.
While the paint dries, the Observatory provides a small selection of amusements. For the avoidance of doubt, none of them can be won.
Indoor conditions are not expected to vary. The forecast reflects the room settings above.
This began as a dare. A boy asked, mostly joking, for a website where you could watch paint dry — so we built one and took it seriously. The wall is a coarse film model: thousands of little patches of emulsion, each losing its wet sheen at a slightly different moment, so a drying front creeps across the surface the way it does on a real wall (edges and thin spots first). The clock is honest to the physics: a coat that is touch-dry in twenty minutes at 20 °C and 50% humidity will loiter for hours in a cold, damp room, and a full cure to a hardened film takes weeks. Warm it up, open a window, and watch the numbers fall.
Vanilla JavaScript on a single canvas. No frameworks, no build step, no paint fumes. The extractor-fan hum, if you switch it on, is synthesised. Best enjoyed slowly.