There is a tube of student-grade cobalt blue sitting on my table that has humbled me. I bought it partly as a joke, to prove to myself and to a student who keeps asking that the medium does half the work. And then I mixed it into a shadow on a flesh tone and I could not get the same warmth with my good pigment. The cheap one was muddy, yes, but muddy in a way that had a life to it. I have been painting for twenty years and standing there like a fool.

The student was right and I hate that. Not that good paint is a waste of money, that is still true, but that I had turned my materials into a superstition. As if the price of the tube was protecting me from my own bad decisions.

I am going to keep using the expensive stuff for the work I take seriously. But the cheap cobalt is staying on the table where I can see it, as a reminder that the hand matters more than I want to admit. Tell that to my student. She will be insufferable.