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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.

Went to restock on Arches paper today, expensive enough that I have to talk myself into it every time, and the guy ringing me up sees the blocks and goes "oh wow, you're brave, I could never do watercolor, too stressful, I don't have the patience." And I just stood there with my debit card out like 🙂 ok. Because what do you even say to that? It's not the first time I've heard it and it's always framed like I'm doing something weird and self-punishing instead of just... painting. Like it's some extreme sport. I don't go to the oil painting aisle and tell people they're brave for waiting three days for paint to dry. I know he meant it kindly. I know. But I'm so tired of watercolor being treated like the masochist's hobby when it's literally just the medium I fell in love with. Nobody tells a guitarist they're brave for playing acoustic. Anyway I bought the paper and went home and painted the same window I've painted forty times and it still came out wrong so maybe he had a point honestly

there's a tube of phthalo blue in my drawer that's been glued shut for like four years and i still can't toss it. the paint inside is probably dry, but if i ever need that exact tube again... for what? the same pigment is in every art store in the city. i know this. i won't throw it out. i think it's because it survived the bad year. i remember buying it on a good day before everything went sideways, at the little art supply place that closed down after. so now it's a relic with a specific memory attached and i treat it like a museum piece instead of a tube of paint. anyway i have a drawer of emotional support art supplies now. most of it is garbage. the paint itself is probably fine it's just the cap that's seized, which means i could technically just... cut the end of the tube off. i should do that. i won't, though. it's been four years. it's earned its retirement. 💀

I had a booth at a local craft fair Saturday and a woman picked up one of my acrylic landscapes, looked at it for a good minute, and said "oh this is nice, I could probably do this with my daughter's $5 watercolor set." And I just stood there like... okay. So do it then? I'd love to see you mix titanium white into a puddle of Crayola paint and get that kind of coverage on canvas. Please. Film it. I didn't say any of that of course. I smiled and said "you should give it a try, it's really relaxing!" and she moved on. My husband said I was too nice and I probably was but also what's the point. People who think art supplies are all the same are not people you're going to convince in one conversation at a folding table. Still felt like packing up my easel and going home though.

I bought a pack of those super cheap synthetic brushes at Michael's a few months ago, like $8 for a dozen, just to beat up on for texture work and practice pieces. And now I reach for them almost every time over the nice ones my husband got me for Christmas. They're not even good brushes. The ferrule is wobbly and one of them is already shedding. But they're the exact right stiffness for how I actually paint, and I'm not scared to mess them up. That's the thing. The nice ones sit in the jar and I keep talking myself out of using them because what if I ruin them. Meanwhile the $8 ones are doing all the real work. I think I need to just give the good ones to a purpose. Use them on a piece I actually care about and stop treating them like they're museum pieces. Anyone else have brushes they are weirdly protective of and never use? Or am I just hoarding nice art supplies like everybody does.

Was buying a new pad of pastel paper at the art shop and then stopped for groceries on the way home. The cashier saw the paper sticking out of my bag and goes "oh, painting by numbers? my grandma does those." I just said no and smiled. But I've been thinking about it all evening. Why do people see someone with art supplies and immediately assume it's a hobby, a kit, something where you just follow instructions? Like the idea that someone might be actually trying to make something from scratch, badly or not, just doesn't occur to them. And I know it's not a big deal. It's a random comment from a stranger. But it's the thousandth time something like this has happened and I'm tired of feeling like I have to justify that what I do isn't just... coloring inside someone else's lines. Anyway. Put down a portrait tonight that I hated and scraped off with a razor. At least that was my own bad decision, start to finish.

there are three art supply stores within a fifteen minute drive of my apartment and I still hoard them. it's pathological. I bought six of the same exact moleskine when I was in portland last year because what if they discontinue it and I'm stuck with something that ghosts my charcoal differently. the worst part is I only fill maybe two a year. so I've got a decade supply of sketchbooks that all look the same on a shelf and I still get nervous when the stack dips below eight.

I was buying a new palette at this little art supply shop downtown, one I've been going to for years, and this guy maybe 60s just watching me pick out colors finally goes "you know, with watercolor, you have to work light to dark." Like I had wandered in off the street and picked up a brush for the first time that morning. And I laughed it off because I'm bad at confrontation but then I spent the whole walk home fuming at myself for not saying anything. I've been painting daily for like a decade. I have a BFA. I taught a workshop last month. But sure, random man at the art store, please explain the most basic principle of my entire medium to me like I'm five. Honestly the thing that gets me is I KNOW he wouldn't have done that to a guy holding an oil palette. Watercolor is "dainty" or "hobbyist" or whatever until you try to actually control it and realize it's the most unforgiving medium there is. One wrong wash and you're done. But okay. Work light to dark. Got it. Thank you so much.

i have three rolls of this specific archival tape in my drawer. i know it's bad. i know it yellows in six months and loses adhesion by the end of the year. but every time i'm at the art supply store i grab another one before i can stop myself. it's the brand my brother used. he taped everything with it. mix tapes, posters, the edges of a drawing he gave me once. i can't switch.

I finally threw out my fifteen-year-old palette knife today. The handle had gone loose years ago and I'd been wrapping it in masking tape to keep it tight, and at some point the tape became more handle than handle. I picked up a new one at the art supply shop last week and it sat on my desk for seven days before I could bring myself to retire the old one. It felt ridiculous, standing there holding it. That knife had mixed the green I use for every oak leaf I've painted in a decade and a half. It had the exact spring in the blade I knew by hand. The new one is stiff and wrong and I expect it will be for another fifteen years.

I now have four clip-on lights aimed at my little painting corner because the overhead light in the basement is somehow both too dim and too harsh. My husband walked by and asked if I was doing surgery. But honestly the one I keep going back to is this cheap $12 daylight LED clip lamp from Michaels that's like six years old and held on with a rubber band. It's not the best color rendering, the arm droops, but it's the one that's actually aimed where I need it. The expensive ones are too fussy. I keep telling myself I'll set up a proper lighting rig when I clear out the other half of the basement. That was the plan in 2021. The other half of the basement now has a treadmill with clothes on it and a full set of my kids' old art supplies from when they still wanted to paint with me. Anyway. Tell me I'm not the only one painting under a nest of clip lamps. Or better yet, tell me your actual setup so I can feel properly inadequate.

I know you can buy perfectly good pre-stretched canvas. I know this. And sometimes I do, for studies or when I'm traveling. But for the real work I still go to the art supply shop on Rue des Trois-Marie, pick through the rolls of linen by touch, and spend an afternoon cutting and stretching and sizing. My husband thinks it's a ritual I won't let go of. Maybe it is. But there's something about the tension you can only get when you've done it yourself, pulling the pliers until the weave is exactly right, hearing the frame creak a little. And the rabbit skin glue, I know synthetic sizes work fine, but the smell of it cooking takes me straight back to my first year of training. That hideous little kitchen in the atelier where we learned to grind pigment and stretch linen before we were allowed to touch a brush. I had a student last year who asked why I bother. She'd only ever worked on pre-primed cotton. I told her to try it once, just to feel the difference in the surface when you've done it yourself. She never did, I think. But the ones who try it understand immediately. I'm not saying it makes better paintings. But it makes my paintings. That's enough for me.

I found this half-full jar of Liquitex gesso in a bin yesterday. I swear I bought it before my youngest was born. The top was crusted shut, I had to run it under hot water to get it open. Inside it's separated and a little watery on top, but I stirred it and it seemed okay? I prepped a small canvas with it just to see what happens. It feels a bit thinner than I remember but it's drying fine. Am I going to give myself some kind of mold situation or is gesso basically immortal? I hate throwing art supplies out but I also hate painting on something that's going to fail six months from now.

Been hauling materials from the same supply place in Kalamaria for years, and yesterday some vendor who knows my face comes sprinting out of his stall all eager. Says he'll help me carry the palette of smalti I just paid for. Sir, that is 40 kilos of glass and you are wearing sandals. I told him no thanks, I've got it, I've done this a thousand times. He does not stop. He grabs one corner anyway. Fifteen seconds later he's on the pavement holding his wrist like I shot him, and I'm standing there with the whole weight on one side because he let go mid-lift. My back is going to remind me of his good intentions for a week. The thing is he meant well. That's the part that gets me. Nobody ever busted their wrist offering to carry my groceries, but touch a piece of heavy art material and suddenly everyone's a hero. I thanked him through the pain, paid for the palette again in the form of a chiropractor visit today, and now my studio smells like deep heat. I know it's not the worst thing that happened in the world today. But my knees are 45 years old and they did not need this.