Quality vs. Quantity
Quality art supplies can make or break your outcome. Without knocking any particular brands, I’d like to
stress this issue. I paint on
Arches Watercolor Paper, often ordered from DickBlick.com or
MisterArt.com
. It is a fabulous paper, well known for quality and consistency. I’m sure it’s not the most expensive paper, and it’s by far not the cheapest. But, nonetheless, it’s a professional product that can deliver professional results.
When I am teaching, and students bring something that reminds me of the paper sitting in my printer tray next to my computer, I inwardly groan. I encourage them to practice on the “good stuff”. I will mostly hear protests that they don’t want to waste it, but your practice affects how you grow to understand your medium. For watercolors, the water and paint behave differently on different surfaces, so it behooves me to understand the surfaces before I put my hand to a piece that is meant to be for sale, a gift, or even for my personal collection. It will simply be another experiment if I’ve never used that brand of paint, that paper, or that canvas or medium. I don’t test out new tubes of colors on newsprint, because the idea is completely ridiculous. And what if that little test-run ends up being a masterpiece? The fact is that you never know for sure what your outcome will be, so always use good product, and then you won’t have to worry about trying to re-create something.
Brushes are another area that causes me to cringe. Now I realize that good brushes can run $25, $50 or even $100. Perhaps the thought of spending that much on one tool seems preposterous to you, you feel guilty, or you just really don’t have any money it seems. So let me try to convince you to re-arrange your priorities. When I let my students borrow my brushes for a day, they are generally amazed at how different they feel, and how incredible the results are. They have been so frustrated for months or even years at the weak results to their massive creative efforts, and some of this is due to lack of quality control.
This is my theory – tell people that you don’t want jewelry, expensive ties, or chocolates for holidays. Fill out a wish list at your favorite supplier and tell folks you really need good art supplies. Put everything on the list from a 69 cent kneaded eraser to a $400 easel, and you might be pleasantly surprised on occasion. My husband knows better than to buy me frilly gifts for our various celebrations, because I will simply want to return them, or they sit unused. Now I get a stocking packed with brushes, or a Valentine’s gift bag with tubes of paint! And he gets even greater satisfaction when I am downstairs, music blaring, plugging away at my latest creation.
Another thing to do, which is not that hard if you insist a little discipline from yourself is to simply budget funds each month for supplies. Start small, with $25 a month, and squeeze extra into that when you can. There’s something very inspiring about opening a brown box, addressed to you, filled with shiny new supplies.
It’s quality vs. quantity. Don’t skimp on the quality in order to have quantity; the quantity comes in time with patience.
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