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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 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.

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 took a commission back in February for a 16x20 landscape, a friend of a friend wanted a specific view from their vacation photos. I quoted $200 which is usually fair for that size and my level. What I didn't account for was the two weeks I spent staring at those reference photos, trying to figure out how to handle the lighting, sketching thumbnails in my head while I was folding laundry, completely rethinking the composition twice before I even touched a brush. By the time I actually started painting I had probably put in 6-8 hours of just... mental labor. And I didn't charge for any of it. Finished it in about 10 hours of actual painting time so the math works out to like $12/hour before supplies. I know you can't really bill for "thinking about it" but also, that was work, you know? It was work. I'm trying to figure out how to price differently next time without feeling like I'm nickel-and-diming someone. Maybe just raise the flat rate enough to cover it and stop overthinking.

Went to the art supply place on my lunch break, 40 minutes I don't really have, to get one tube of burnt sienna. Mine is a sad flat metal corpse, I've been squeezing it with pliers like a crazy person. Guy working there spends ten minutes telling me I should try their house brand instead, it's basically the same pigment, half the price. I said no thanks, I know how the real one behaves when I thin it. He says, and I quote, "they're all made in the same factory." Maybe they are. I still walked out with the expensive one and now I'm annoyed at myself for being the person who pays double for a label, and also annoyed at him for assuming I don't know my own paint. I've been using this color for nine years. I know exactly how it dries and how it looks over a wet sky. Anyway the sky on the piece on my easel is now the right color and I'm still thinking about it at my desk. Guess that tells you something.

I've been using Sennelier oil sticks for years. Usually reliable, a bit soft in warm weather but nothing you can't work around. The one I bought last week, a raw umber, came out of the tube with the consistency of toothpaste that's been left uncapped all night. Crumbly, dry, almost no oil feel at all. I had to break it up and mix it with stand oil just to get it to stick to the knife. I emailed the supplier. They said it's a known issue with a batch from the summer. No recall, but they'd replace it if I sent photos. Which I did, but I'm stuck on the fact that they knew and still shipped it. That's three tubes of paint I've had problems with this year across different brands and I'm starting to wonder if the supply chain issues everyone talked about in 2022 are still showing up now as rushed batches and bad checks. Anyway. The raw umber is fine now after the intervention. But I shouldn't have to doctor a Sennelier stick like it's cheap student grade. Anybody else hit a dud batch lately or is it just me.

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.

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.

Okay so I finally caved and bought a tube of genuine terre verte after two years of telling myself the synthetic mix was fine. It was $34. It's a tiny tube. And the second I laid it down I got it, because the synthetic one goes gray-blue and this one just sits there being green, like moss on a rock, it doesn't go anywhere it doesn't want to. Which is annoying honestly because now I have opinions. I'm the person with opinions about dirt now. The thing is I quit my café job in March and every single supply purchase feels like a moral decision. I stood in the aisle doing math on my phone. I know exactly how many tubes of this I could have bought with one shift, and I bought it anyway, and I've been painting a study of the window with the fire escape for two weeks and yesterday the shadow on the sill finally came out right because of it. My mom asked what I did today and I said "I bought some dirt" and she laughed for a solid minute. She's not wrong. Anyway I'm not going back to the synthetic one, that's the whole post.

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.

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.

was at an estate sale this weekend, said i was looking at a box of old photographs. just looking. woman running the sale walks over, all friendly, says "oh those are nice, you could cut them up and make something pretty." i stood there holding a picture of someones grandmother and felt genuinely sick for a second. like no, margaret, actually you cant. that's somebody's whole face. that's somebody's whole life in a cardboard box for 3 dollars and i'm supposed to be the one who makes it palatable. she saw my face and laughed. "or not! whatever you artists do." i bought them anyway. all of them. box was 12 bucks. they're on my kitchen table now and i can't touch one without feeling like i owe them something. which is probably why i'm an artist and she sells dead people's lampshades. nothing wrong with that. but don't tell me what to do with a stranger's face like it's craft supplies.

I was reorganizing my supplies this week and counted eleven jars of water sitting around the studio in various states of use. Eleven. My husband walked in, looked at the collection, and asked if I was conducting an experiment. I told him I was, and had been for thirty years. People economize on paint, on paper, on brushes, and I understand all of it. But water is the variable I will not cut corners on. A tired wash full of lifted pigment is the difference between a leaf that looks alive and one that looks painted. When I teach, I make students change their water after every third wash and they always think I'm being precious. Then they see the two paintings side by side and they stop arguing. Distilled water for mixing, tap for cleaning, and never the two shall meet. I know it sounds like superstition. Maybe it is, at this point. But there's a particular blue-gray that only appears in water that's been sitting overnight, and I've learned to recognize it the way you'd recognize a bad mood in a friend. Some days I paint with it anyway, just to see what happens.

Ok so I just finished off a tube of French ultramarine that I bought second year of my BFA. Second year. That's like six years of a single tube of paint, which sounds insane until you remember how little you need of it, a dot does so much work. And now the tube is split at the seam and I keep squeezing it like there's something left and there isn't, and I'm sitting here at my desk genuinely a little sad?? about a tube of paint. it's not even a sentimental object, it's not like my dad's brushes or anything, it's just that I bought it with money from a summer job I hated and I had no idea what I was doing and I thought you were supposed to buy the fancy brand and now I know I could've gotten the cheap one and been fine. And I've made probably forty paintings with it. Some of them are bad. A few are good. The window one from last spring is mostly this color. Anyway I ordered a new one and it's coming Tuesday and it will not feel the same at all, which is stupid, it's literally the same pigment, same brand, same everything. Except it won't be. Does anyone else get attached to supplies like this or am I just being dramatic because I'm avoiding the underpainting I'm supposed to be doing

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

Started a new still life tonight after the kids finally went to bed. Got all my supplies out on the kitchen table, got my palette set up, got maybe 20 minutes into blocking in the background and realized I forgot to pack my son's lunch for tomorrow. So I had to stop, wipe my hands, make a sandwich, put the grapes in the little container he'll complain about anyway. Came back and the paint on my palette was already starting to skin over. I love painting in the cracks of the day but man, I dream about having a space I can just leave a mess and come back to. Even a corner. Just one corner where a half-finished canvas isn't in danger of getting ketchup on it. Anyone else making it work in a non-studio studio? How do you handle the constant setup/teardown without losing momentum?

Okay so the tape. Not a fresh roll, the same four strips I've been reusing since like March, stuck to the edge of my glass palette so they don't lose their tack. My partner watched me peel one off this morning, press it back down, and just said "we have a whole drawer of that." We do. I know we do. The thing is these four strips have the exact right amount of stick left. New tape rips the paper when I lift it, old tape gives up halfway through a big wet wash and the whole sheet buckles and I have to sit there watching it curl like it's personally disappointed in me. So I keep them. They've got paint on them now, a reddish smear from that cadmium I use way too much of, and one corner is folded over from the day I was rushing to get the light on the window before it moved. I don't think this is a cute habit, I think it's probably a small problem and I'm telling on myself. But every time I go to grab a fresh strip I do the little satisfaction check first, tap the paper, and the used ones always win. Anyone else hoarding a supply that's technically garbage because the replacement behaves wrong? I need to know I'm not the only one with a tape problem, or honestly, I need someone to tell me to just use the new roll.

My favorite flat brush, a Princeton Catalyst I bought at a workshop two years ago, the one I was so precious with I'd wash it twice and never let it sit in the water cup, finally shed a bristle today mid-stroke on a sky I was actually happy with. It stuck right in the middle of a cloud. I fished it out but the damage was done, both to the painting and my trust lol. I know brushes wear out, that's what they do. But I swear I've been so careful with this one. Meanwhile the cheap multipack brushes I bought on a whim at Michael's are all still perfectly intact. Makes me wonder if I should just stop getting attached to nice supplies and treat everything as disposable. But then I think about how that Catalyst felt in the hand, how it laid down a smooth wash... ugh. Anyway I guess I'm in the market for a new favorite brush. Anyone else ever have a tool breakup that stung more than it should?

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.

There was a supply vendor at the fall fair near me and I grabbed a single tube of yellow ochre, the cheap student one, because I was out. Two weeks later it's in every single thing on my table. Sky, the dead grass in the field behind the school, the side of the pear I've repainted four times. My husband asked if I was stuck on it and honestly maybe. Anyway I'm painting the same view off the back porch for the third time because it's what I can see while the kids do homework at the kitchen table. 11x14 canvas board, the cheap stuff, so I don't feel bad about wiping it. The 8 year old says the trees look like broccoli and she's not wrong. I'm not sure the ochre is a phase or just what I needed. But I bought two more tubes so I'm committed now.