So yesterday, just as I was breaking furniture and trying to kill the cats for having made a doodoo in the hallway, the delivery man called to inform me my samples parcel from Jackson's has arrived - several days ahead of schedule, no less - and I had to switch from felicidal rampage to overwhelming sense of excitement - not as easy as it sounds in this heat..
Treating myself for my BD, I bought myself three brushes - sizes not necessarily those I am accustomed to using, but all in all I think, even intuitively, I chose them very well - four sheets of paper, a sketchpad, and several samples. Also some paints, but let's not go there. I am almost at the end of my curiosity list. Even though the Turner tube turned out... (okay, weird sentence) to be a pink shimmer, and I would not buy a pink shimmer had I known that's what it will be, it is a very curious pink shimmer, leaving a very pronounced magenta rim once it dries - really quite fascinating and lovely.
It took me a little while to determine which paper is which - they are not marked at all (And also I wouldn't terribly mind if they arrived a little bit cleaner.) - so comparing sizes, gramature and the receipt took some concentration, as I can now safely say anything above 300 lb is too much for me. Not saying some Arles shit or the Two Rivers of 640 lb or so isn't shockingly superlative, but I can do without. For now. My formats do not warrant it.
Before I left for the capital, I just tested the lot. I decided this time I won't pack anything at all, not even my pencil wad. Nothing. It is a three-day retreat and I need to switch off a little. Now ask me how intensely, organically, fundamentally, molecularly I yearn for it. For ONE paint if must be, one brush, one pen, just three or four little postcard-size pieces of paper ...
Some woman on Facebook contacted me with a small commission, the description of which was lovely and a project I wouldn't mind taking on, but once we started talking formats and detail and technique and, of course, prices, her budget was slightly limited. I say slightly, because while I understand something sentimental doesn't necessarily require a budget, but I am alas far beyond charging peanuts for my work. I need neither the money nor a reputation, (Looking back on my photography stuff, oh, how badly one can tell my heart was not in it. Yikes.), so whatever I take on is pure interest. But explaining her expectations would require a lot more than two hours, and my tone was probably far less enthusiastic than some people are accustomed to, I never heard back from her. It was a cute idea, though. I am sure she will find some student to execute it wonderfully for the price.
And thus, as I write this, waiting for the coffee to kick in, like physically missing a lover, my fingers ache for the feel of that impossibly rough texture, my nose misses the smell of wet cotton with the intense watercolour smell on it, my wrist misses the oddly heavy feel of a Silver's mark 12 mop brush, or the funny novelty of a rigger, or the (slightly too small, as I couldn't afford a bigger one) humbleness when handling the Maestro. What I really need, though, is either a palette where I can park the paints I have in tubes and drag it around with me, or I should just squirt those little buggers (5ml tubes, ah. Talk about miniatures) in pans and be done with it. I think almost 400 pans arrived as soon as I left. Just as well. I am two paints away from launching the nine-piece purple scale. All that and more, in the few days that I have before we go on vacation.
Which will also be only 4 days long. What can one do in 4 days? Well, a lot, but it has to be only one thing. I can paint for four days and get fat on hotel food. I can hike the highland plains and forests. I can write. I can start another little picturebook. I do some lessons in paint or sketch portraiture. Using napping G as a model? Gods know I need to brush up on my studies. I can try to design the Oracle cards. I can start working on a new web page? I can read some of the two dozen books I've bought lately. One can do a lot on vacation.
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