What does a watercolor artist really need? And what can be lived without?
I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but all the year-end blog posts about Christmas wishlists, presents, new supplies and shopping sprees really got me thinking about it again.
When I first starte painting (in '06, I think) I had one set of watercolor Yarka St. Petersburg paints, and most of them were moldy. I also had a few tubes of Grumbacher Academy I'd bought on a whim when a local discount store went out of business. I had drugstore 'watercolor paper', and an old copy of a Reader's Digest book about Watercolor painting. That was it. And all of it was over ten years old.
So...when I started in earnest, learned to draw a bit and started painting a couple of times a week, I started buying supplies. And oh, did I buy supplies. Worse, I bought supplies with no real clue what I needed or what I would use them for. I saw pretty colors and cool packaging and gorgeous artwork on the wrapping, and thought "Yes! I want to try those!"
I knew not about fugitive pigments. I knew nothing about limited palettes. I had no clue how to mix colors; whenever I tried I got a muddy mess. So I compensated by buying tube colors that didn't need to be mixed.
Well, I've learned a lot since then. And everytime I learned something wasn't permanent or was inappropriate for my project, I bought something new. I mixed up the new and the old and filled several boxes with "essential" supplies. And spent a LOT of money overall, too.
Now...let me digress for a moment. I loved to read the forums and blogs and visit artist's sites. I love to see the work they do, and fell in lust with the idea of a travelling sketchkit. I quickly put one together, using cheapie stuff I could leave in the car without being paranoid about what might happen to it. I bought an old, beat-up Italian leather handbag at a flea market, and happily filled it with cheapie colored pencils and some of those old tubes of paint. I carried it around in my car for over a year, and only opened it twice. I finally realized that when I lifted the flap and saw those sub-par materials, my enthusiasm fell through the floorboards. So, I refilled the bag with better stuff.
To figure out what I needed/should bring, I posted my intentions to a forum full of other artists, and asked them for suggestions. I also sat on my living room sofa and worked on a small painting, and made a list of every item I used as I used it. If I needed a ruler, I wrote it down. If I needed it again later, I made a mark next to it, so when I read through my list later I knew what I used most often. And that's what I packed into it. Finally, I bought a spare of every item, and put them into the bag so that I wouldn't be risking my one-and-only of anything. And, I wouldn't have to go out to my car and dig through my bag looking for something inside. In some cases, I bought cheaper versions of my best stuff, so that if the bag were stolen or got left behind I wouldn't be losing mega bucks.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, I signed up for a watercolor class. I'd never taken one before, but when I read through the supply list I was sure I had everything I needed in my bag except paper. So the day of the class I grabbed two full sheets of Arches paper, several sheets of tracing paper, and my newly refilled ol' sketching kit.
When I arrived, I chose a table in the back of the room, dumped my stuff and went meandering around to meet people and see what was going on. I was excited, and couldn't wait to see what great things I'd learn.
Excitement and enthusiasm turned into fear when I saw all the gear other people were bringing in. One woman wheeled in three big totes on a special cart. Another, older, woman opened a file box and began arranging about three hundred tubes of paint. She laid them all out by color and size and transparency and permanence and brand name. I watched a man set up a full-size easel and bring out a wooden chest that was brimming with expensive stuff. He had markers and paints and colored pencils and pastels and pigments in little jars. Altogether, my classmates probably had enough stuff to represent a full third of Cheap Joes' current catalog. Yikes! I suddenly felt very underdressed.
By then I was filled with doubt. How could I just show up with my little bag and two full sheets? What was I thinking? I swear I was one minute away from just walking out when the class started.
But, about half-an-hour into the class, something incredible started happening. First, the woman on my left needed a sheet of tracing paper. No problem...I gave her one of mine. I also cut one of my full sheets of Arches into quarters to give some to the lady who owned an art gallery. I gave another quarter away an hour later to a woman who was trying to paint on printer paper.
The class lasted all day; and in that time nearly every item I brought was needed by somebody. Which left me wondering just what was in all those totes, chests, backpacks, and boxes? How could these intelligent, educated, creative, and upstanding people be so laden and yet so unprepared? At the very end, as everyone was showing their finished works, even the instructor needed to borrow my ruler.
I left feeling pretty smug. But that feeling changed when I got home and took a long look at my creative spaces. I realized that while my little field kit may have had everything I needed plus, I was still just as overly supplied at home as everyone else had been at class. I had some of everything. And I had some things in doubles and triplicates; usually because I'd either forgotten I bought them the first time, or lost them and needed to buy another.
...to be continued...
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