Art journeys

As I'm doing entries (for now, anyway!), a note to my future self. Do not buy ANY more paper or sketchbooks. Seriously.

I've signed up for the sketchbooking class (fingers crossed it will actually happen this term, as the last couple of courses have been cancelled due to lack of take up) and so I was up in my 'art room' trying to decide what book to take to fill up with the kind of experimental stuff Steve likes to prompt. I've got SO MANY SKETCHBOOKS, guys, it's not funny. I ended up with a pile of seven books already started, in various stages of completion, all good watercolour paper. I'm reluctant to use that for this course because a lot of the time we're just using pencil, or mixed media, or whatever, and you really don't need the 100% cotton for that, and cold pressed is probably not the best surface either.

But then I realised I'd recently ordered two more of those good watercolour books (in the sale, so I had to, right?), and the shelf I'd been stashing those on was actually two deep, which means for that make of watercolour book alone, I now have FIVE unopened, still wrapped. I checked my cupboard where I was supposed to be keeping the 100% cotton paper (blocks, books etc) and there were more in there (different brands), and more in the other cupboard, and then I discovered several different places I've been storing my aquabord/gesso boards etc and I've got a lot more of those than I thought.

So I eventually found the hot pressed 100% cotton Will Bailey sketchbook I'd started using for Steve's last evening course and am taking that with me. The moment I flicked through it I remembered going through this whole faff last time too. DOH!

I probably should take a day and have a proper sort out of everything in that room because my policy of shoving things in a drawer or on a shelf 'for now' is clearly getting out of hand.  From what I've seen today, I could draw or paint two pages a day and still not have used everything I've already got - and the worst thing is I now know that the good watercolour paper doesn't keep for that long before the sizing goes off. I feel a bit like I've become the 100% cotton watercolour paper equivalent of a crazy cat lady. (And I should probably add actual paint to that crazy too, since I've become a collector of pigments).

The strategy of having lots to make me less fearful of using it is actually causing a different kind of art paralysis where I have too many choices and can't decide what to do or which supplies to use.

And if all that isn't a massive first world problem, I don't know what is. What an idjit.