Art Materials

Being a student definitely has its perks when you are obsessed with crafting materials and have access to student discount offers

Everything except the sketchbooks came from Art Discounts using a student discount code for 10% off

https://www.studentbeans.com/student-discount/uk/artdiscount/0-student-discount-artdiscount

the sketchbooks came from pink pig and they also have a student beans discount

https://www.studentbeans.com/student-discount/uk/the-pink-pig/code-15-student-discount-4731f4c8-b09b-4ec0-85db-3425ec6b53e4

not on commish or anything (sadly 😂…. hit me up if you want me to be an art influencer and send me to the Maldives or something… 😂) , just sharing the links as I think they are good deals

I have often heard it said that:

“buying art materials, and using art materials are totally different hobbies”

Sadly, I am squarely in the first camp in terms of my skill and experience. I have an abundance of beautiful sketch pads that remain as pristine as the day I bought them, and I’m fairly sure sketchpad social services might come round and remove them from my care due to neglect. Part of the reason I wanted to start this course was in the hope it would spark my creativity candle which has all but flickered out in recent times.

I have attempted to buy everything that was suggested on the course notes

• willow charcoal

• compressed charcoal

• fixative spray

• graphite pencils up to 9B

• water soluble ink

• bamboo pen/brush

• putty rubber

• masking tape

• glue

• A5,A4,A3 sheets of paper

• paper on a roll for larger work

• A5,A4,A3 sketchbooks

• Conté pastels (never even heard of these before 🤷‍♀️)

• A2 drawing board

There was a number of items I needed which I think I already own…..somewhere….

• oil pastels

• paint brushes

• black pens ( I like the faber castell pitt pens)

• calligraphy pens

• coloured pencils (good excuse to use my special polychromos that i treated to myself to in lockdown…see above about buying but not using art materials 😂)

• black paint

• ink roller

• printing ink (I need to check I have this as they wanted an oil based one and I think mine might be water based)

• Glass jars (I have a soft spot for those gü pot desserts so I have a good few ramekins going spare…)

The main thing I need to work on now is finding a good creative space to both store and use my art materials where I won’t be hounded by my cat ceilidh.

When trying to take the photo of my materials for this blog entry, she decided that these were all gifts for her instead.

(She is also renowned for making off with pens, pencils and brushes. She is the reason the term cat burglar exists [sorry no references are available for this claim, you’ll have to just take my word for it] )

I have been working from home since the start of lock down, and I am fortunate to have a small office space already set up in the spare room, but it’s so cluttered with work notebooks, computer screens and various other bits of office based nonsense, that it’s not a very clear and workable space for creativity at the moment

I need to spend a little time working out how I can split the space between art studio and office workspace.

I have also made a start on one of my A5 sketchbooks today. I started to make an interesting front page for it, but I have since realised I have done this right at the back of the book instead of at the front. What a numpty