Thursday Art Walk

 

In Which I Try Out Some Stuff!!!

Buckle up friends, because this is a saga of me trying to buy art supplies online for the first time in about a decade.

I used to paint with watercolors a lot. I picked it up in college while doing some art requirements and fell in love with how luminous the paints could get, how every aspect of the environment and medium could change the outcome of a painting, how fun it was to layer and adjust different areas of a piece... I just loved everything about watercolor!

Except for how hard it is to do it on a tv tray in a bedroom without a sink nearby.

So when I started seeing ads for water brushes I was ecstatic! Finally, a way to paint with watercolors that wouldn't get everywhere if I, in my eternal clumsiness, knocked an open container of water onto my floor!

And I saw a sale on a site called Arteza.

And I had, for once, a little disposable cash...

It seemed like fate - for the price of a medium cheeseburger pizza with jalapenos from Dominos, I soon had a six-pack of water brushes in various sizes and shapes plus a three-pack of small, hard-cover, ring-bound watercolor notebooks ordered!

The website said 5-7 business days.

It took quite a while for the order to ship, and then I saw my mistake.

Arteza uses DHL.

Not FedEx, not UPS, not even USPS.

DHL.

oy.

So I've never had a good experience with DHL - ordered stuff from Etsy that shipped and then never arrived, ordered things from ebay with the same results, and even had some school books back in college that arrived water damaged.

My excitement waned.

My order shipped separately. The brushes had a slow but smooth trek up the coast to me, but for some reason, the notebooks stalled out in Georgia for about a week.

My excitement was already nearly gone when my dad handed me a tiny six-inch-cube (15.24㎤) box.

A box with a lot of dents...

Names & Addresses redacted of course...

I was unsurprised, given my history with DHL, but hey, at least it didn't seem punctured and nothing rattled when I shook it? But really, that size seemed... suspiciously subpar for a six-pack of brushes on a cardboard backing...

WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOOXXXXXXX?!

Inside the package, I saw a bunch of crumpled brown packing paper. I appreciate the dedication to securing the card in the box, but it seemed... excessive.

Oh thank goodness, they seem alri... hold on, what?!

The brushes were all blisterpacked neatly, but the card seemed... bent.

Really?

Yeah. They bent the card in half to use a cube box when a flat box would've been just as good and just as cheap...

My excitement built again for about a day when I checked the tracking on package two and saw that it hadn't moved an inch out of Georgia for about a week. I had no paper to practice my watercolors on. I didn't even know if my watercolors were still good! It had been probably about ten years since the last time I painted.

Then, one day, I checked the tracking again and... success! The package was in my hometown waiting to be delivered by my local postal carrier! My local post office dudes are sometimes a mixed bag, but they're usually pretty prompt.

The thing is, they also tend to send packages and mail out at different times of day, so as you may have noticed on Tuesday's blog, I was literally listening for the mail truck the whole time I was typing lol!

And suddenly there it was!

I abhor overpackaging. I simply detest it. That up there? That's optimal packaging for a trio of sketchbooks prepackaged in plastic wrap! There's not a whole lot that can get damaged in transit with books like these, so seeing such an easy-to-unwrap-and-dispose-of packaging was a treat after the Tiny Box nonsense of the brushes!

And they're in perfect condition!

I am beyond pleased with these notebooks. They feel sturdy, the paper is thick, and the smaller size makes them super portable! At last, I could test out my old watercolors and my new water brushes!!!

But not my old palette, since that broke...

True facts: Anything smooth can be a palette if you're brave enough.

My ancient set of Marie's Watercolors from when Ocean State opened nearby...

I'm cheap. I am just a cheap person. I hate to spend money when it's not explicitly necessary and I don't want to buy paint if I don't have to. Thankfully, Past Me did Present Me a massive favor and held on to my watercolors even after I ran out of good paper.

My setup!

I have a tv tray in my room that I use as a table, and I've got a folding chair pulled up to that. But the table is flat and I like to paint at an angle, so I decided to use the awesome tray my partner got me as somewhat of an easel, and I gotta tell you - it works amazingly well!!!

Observe! A functioning art station!

I swatched these paints out on Wednesday using my new brushes and I loved every second of it... except for putting the paints on the palette. See, most of my earthtones are dried up so I had to use a plastic yarn needle to get in there and pull out some pigment. I'm planning on taking the watercolors out of their tubes permanently and putting them in some containers I bought at the local cheap shop. Saves money, and I still get to use my paints because watercolors are, by their nature, water soluble. They're still useful, just stuck!

But how, you may ask, did the brushes work?

In a word: Beautifully.

It took me a second to figure out how to unscrew the ends and fill them, but once assembled, it's pretty intuitive. Some brushes require more pressure to squish the water through, others are fairly consistent, and if you have patience and a napkin on hand, they're self-cleaning. Just squish and swish! Squish the barrel a bit to get some more water in the bristles, then swish it around on the napkin to dissipate the pigment!

The paper held up well, only doming slightly on the violet, which I added way too much water to. It's hardy paper, which is perfect for a notebook! 

The colors!

For those who may have a hard time reading my Sharpie chickenscratch, the colors are as follows (vertically):

• 102 White
• 215 Lemon Yellow
• 218 Gamboge
• 676 Yellow Ochre
• 301 Orange Yellow
• 324 Vermilion
• 336 Rose
• 315 Crimson
• 684 Burnt Sienna
• 687 Burnt Umber
• 509 Green Light
• 568 Sap Green
• 570 Green Deep
• 455 Cerulean Blue
• 443 Ultramarine
• 430 Violet
• 445 Prussian Blue
• 793 Black

And as I mentioned, several of these colors have solidified, rendering them hard to put on the palette.

Today was the first time I tried to paint with these watercolors, and because I can't find my watercolor pencils, I decided to work without a sketch today! Instead, I laid-out my image using a layer of Lemon Yellow, which was far, far fainter than it looks in this picture:

Comically lighter than this, in fact. It's barely visible!

From there, I just worked in layers of different colors, adding droplets from my very fine brush and mixing colors on the plate.

My supplies for the day - I never did use that marker...

All in all, however, I am proud of how the image came out - especially since it was the first figural painting I've done in such a long time!!!

"Flora" watercolor on watercolor paper; 2021

I'm very proud of the work I've started here, and I can't wait to add more to the notebooks! I hope to fill at least one before fall :)

And that is the story of how I ordered art supplies and everything turned out alright in the end (despite DHL's best efforts...)

Do any of you have silly art-supply-buying stories? Are y'all working on anything in particular right now? Let me know!

For now, that's all for me!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC