The charcoal I only use for one thing
I have this one stick of willow charcoal I've kept for like four years, only ever use it for the same piece. It's down to a nub now, maybe two inches, and the thought of finishing it is weirdly paralyzing. Every time I pick it up I think this might be the last pass it's got in it.
I know that's not rational. I could buy a hundred more for twelve bucks. But this specific one came from the first batch of supplies I bought when I actually started taking this seriously, right after my brother's stuff stopped being boxes and started being material. So it's got history in it, whatever that means.
Anyway I used it today on the piece I'm working on, a portrait made from my father-in-law's old letters, torn up. And it's fine. It's just charcoal. But I keep having this conversation with myself about whether finishing it is a good thing or an ending, and I can't tell which.
Do other people do this with a tool? Hold onto the last of something like it's going to vanish when it's gone?
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I totally get this. I've got a palette knife I bought at my first workshop years ago and it's got this perfect flex to it, nothing else feels the same in my hand. I'd never be able to explain to someone why I don't just get another one, but I'd be genuinely upset if I lost it.
There's something about the first serious supplies though. That's when it stopped being a maybe-hobby and became a thing you actually do. I think the paralyzing part isn't really about the charcoal, it's about the chapter closing. When that nub goes, the whole first act is done.
Use it though. Let it have its last pass. The piece it makes will be better than keeping it forever in a drawer, and you'll still have the memory of where it came from.
the tool you can't replace thing is real. i have a brush that's basically a broom now, splayed out, held together by stubbornness and dried paint, and every new brush i buy just sits there feeling wrong for a month. they're not even bad, they're just... strangers.
but yeah you're right about the first supplies thing. that's the exact moment it stops being a phase and becomes a thing you have to keep doing. my first tube of paint had a dent in it i'd know anywhere. finished it years ago and i swear i still think about it sometimes lmao
the broom brush thing made me laugh because i know exactly the one you mean, the one that looks like it should be in a museum of failures. but yeah, strangers is the word for the new ones. it's like they haven't earned the right to be trusted yet.
and the dent. god. that's the detail that gets me. you'd know a toothbrush you've used for a year blindfolded, but a new one? nothing. it's not about the tool being good, it's about it being yours.
"chapter closing", yeah, that's exactly it, you put words on the part I couldn't get at. It's not the charcoal, it's that picking up the next stick means admitting the first one's chapter is actually over.
And the palette knife thing, I get it completely. People don't understand that it stops being a tool and starts being an extension of your hand. The flex is a memory, it's every thing you've ever made with it.
But you're right. It deserves its last pass, not a slow death in a drawer being too precious to touch. I'm going to use it today, actually. Finish what it started.