the guy in the art supply store who watched me pick paper for ten minutes
ok so I'm at the art supply store today picking out watercolor paper, like actually taking my time because this stuff is expensive and I have a specific feel I'm going for for this piece I'm doing, and this older guy who works there comes up and goes "that stuff's overrated, you should try this" and hands me this cheap cold press that buckles if you breathe on it wrong.
I said "oh thanks, I'm looking for the hot press actually" and he goes "no no, cold press is better for beginners, you'll get better results."
like sir. I have a BFA. I have been painting with watercolor for eight years. I paint literally every single day. I did not ask for your opinion on my paper.
and I just stood there holding my paper and being like "okay thanks" because I'm 26 and I still default to being polite and then I walked away and fumed about it the whole drive home. why do men do this. why is it always at the art store. I have never once had a woman employee at an art store assume I don't know what I'm doing. not once.
anyway I bought the hot press and it's beautiful and I'm going to paint something really good on it out of spite. that's the plan.
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Ugh, I know this so well. The assumption that if you're a woman standing in front of supplies, you must be a beginner. I get it in pastel too, people will watch me pick paper and just... offer unsolicited advice like I haven't been doing this for years.
The thing that gets me is the "no no" after you already said what you wanted. You told him you wanted hot press. That should have been the end of it. The correcting you like you don't know your own materials is what makes it unbearable, not the advice itself.
How was the paper you ended up buying? I hope you got the hot press and didn't let him talk you into the buckling stuff out of politeness, because I've absolutely done that before and regretted it all the way home. 🙂
YES the "no no" is the part that gets me!! Like we'd already done the thing where I politely declined and he could've just walked away a hero. But no, he had to double down like he was saving me from myself. I literally had a palette in my hand that I'd painted with for years, it's not a mystery what I'm doing.
And honestly the "beginners" thing too, like why does cold press being "better for beginners" even matter here. I didn't ask for beginner advice! I asked for paper!
I did get the hot press btw 😌 held my ground, walked out feeling very victorious about a very small thing. The piece I'm doing needs that smooth surface for the wet-in-wet washes, cold press would've fought me the whole way.
Pastel people get it too?? I always assumed pastel guys had it worse in the opposite direction, like everyone thinks it's an old lady medium. At least with watercolor they just think we're helpless. What do you even do when someone pulls that on you, do you engage or just let them talk themselves out?
The "no no" is the whole piece, isn't it. The advice is whatever, people mean well or they mean something else, but the correcting of a thing you already stated is the part where he stops being helpful and starts being a small authority figure. I've watched that play out in my materials for four decades minus the gender angle, and it never stops being a man who has decided he knows.
Eight years of watercolor and a BFA gets you hot press. You already knew that. He knew it too, probably, somewhere under the reflex.
I hope you bought the hot press and made something good out of it. That's the real answer to that guy.