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Back when I was still doing a lot of fabrication work for other artists, a friend asked me to weld a gate for his backyard. Nice guy, helped me move a block of granite once. I quoted him basically materials plus a couple hundred for my time. He was happy, I felt good about it. Five years later he wanted a matching gate for the front. Expected the same price. Then his brother heard about it. Then a neighbor. Then I'm the guy who does cheap custom ironwork for an entire neighborhood and every one of them thinks I'm gouging when I finally say no. That was the last time I did a friends-and-family price on anything. Cost me more in aggravation than I ever saved in goodwill.

I finally did it. Went from €80 to €95 for a full day workshop, materials included, seawater hauling not. Two people who'd been coming every month for over a year just stopped replying. Not even a "that's too much now" or a goodbye. Just silence. I know €95 for a day of my time, my chemicals, my paper, the space, the clean-up, I know that's not a lot. I know that. But it felt like a lot to say out loud. And now I'm sitting here wondering if I should have stayed quiet and kept them. The worst part is I don't even think €15 is what stopped them. I think it was the act of me naming it. Like me raising my price broke something they'd assumed about me, that I'd always be the cheap option, the artist who does it for love. And I am doing it for love. That's exactly the problem.

I've been working on a study of Fritillaria meleagris, the snake's head fritillary, and I keep running into the same problem with one particular passage. The grid pattern on the tepals requires a very controlled lift to get those pale chequered marks out of a darker wash, and my usual standby burnt sienna from Winsor & Newton is staining the paper in a way I can't work around. It's a lovely pigment for many things but it simply will not lift cleanly once it's dried for more than about thirty seconds. I've tried different papers, different dilution levels, even switching to a synthetic sienna from another brand, and the behaviour is the same. I know there are artists who pre-wet the area and work into a damp surface to avoid the problem, but that sacrifices the crispness of the edge I need. I wonder if some of you have found a particular brand or formulation of burnt sienna that lifts more cooperatively, or if you simply avoid it for this kind of work and use something else entirely. I am not ready to give up the colour, it is exactly the right earthy rust for this species, but I might have to adjust my method.

Myself Ramesh. I want to say something that has been on my mind. In the old way, we make our own colours. Rice paste for white. Lampblack from the diya. The red from kusum flower or from geru, the earth. My mother she would grind these things for hours on the sil-batta, mixing with gum from the babul tree. The colour sits on the paper differently. It breathes. Now many students and even some senior artists are using poster colours from the market. It is faster. Also cheaper sometimes. But I look at those paintings and the line has no life. The colour is flat like plastic. You can feel no hand in it. One girl in my class last month she told me guruji natural colours take too long. I said beta that is not a problem. That is the art itself. The grinding, the mixing, the waiting, this is not wasted time. This is the painting. But I also understand. The buyers they want bright. They want quick. And we must eat. So I am conflicted ji. I use both now. Some natural for my own work, some synthetic when I must. But I feel a little shame mixing the two in one painting. Like I am cheating my grandmother. Anyone else feel this way about old materials vs new ones? Or is it only me.🙂