4. The Supplies I’m Using for My Next Art Challenge

Supplies of Choice

I made a post recently about getting in on the 100 tiny paintings in a year action. If you haven’t read that post yet, I suggest you do. I’ll wait for you here… Meanwhile, I’ll give a quick recap for the ones in the back. I’m joining in on the challenge of painting 100 tiny paintings over the course of the next year. Furthermore, I’ll be documenting my progress for the benefit of all of us. But I can’t have my share of the pie without bringing a plate and fork, right? Hence, I’ve decided to enlighten you all with what I’ve chosen as my proverbial eating utensils. So, here’s the 411 on all the supplies I’ll be using.

Watercolors

I’m kind of torn on what watercolor palette, if any, I want to use for this challenge. On one hand, I have my signature palette of 15 colors which works well enough. I’m just not sure if I want to be a minimalist baddie or have the run of the mill color wise. Alternatively, I also have a palette with 39 colors but not only are there colors in it I don’t use, but there are a bunch or colors I use often that aren’t in there. And unfortunately, it’s not a palette that uses half pans so there isn’t an easy way to fix this.

Nevertheless, for the sake of your time (and my insufferable indecisiveness) we’ll just agree that I’ll be using my personally curated limited palette. Additionally, I will for sure be making a travel palette for any plein art painting and it will only have my limited palette in it for obvious reasons. I ordered a palette almost identical to this tiny pink palette (its baby blue instead) for under $10 as an inexpensive treat to myself. The pink will stay in my “studio” (aka on my desk in my room), the blue one will have a home in my periwinkle bag.

Paper

Okay, so I’m really failing at making this list because I also have two options when it comes to paper. The cheaper route is to use up all of the tiny Legion sketchbooks I’ve collected on my various trips to Jerry’s Artarama. On the other hand, I recently heard an artist say to “go ahead and use your good paper because you deserve it” (that was just a summarization of course), which leads me to consider my block of Fabriano Artisico.

I think I’m leaning towards the latter for consistency and just because I deserve to use some of the finer things that art life has to offer. Bougie, I dare say, looks quite good on me (at least on paper). I’ll be cutting out 2.5-inch squares from it.

a piece of kneaded eraser, a pencil, a black fine liner and a white gel pen

pretending to wipe clean a paintbrush on a piece of terrycloth

Utensils and Other Supplies

I didn’t really know what to call this category, so I’ve settled for utensils. Basically, it’s my paintbrushes and things alike. I know for sure that I’ll be using my favorite brush which is a #6 Princeton Velvetouch Filbert. I love that thing… I’ll be sticking to just some of my Velvetouch brushes for this project, so I’ll also be using the #4 round brush, the 5/0 spotter and the #8 flat shader. I think for tiny paintings; this tiny assortment will be perfect.

For the rest of my utensils, I have a pentel water brush for plein air, a 2H Staedtler pencil with its kneaded eraser companion, a white jelly roll gel pen, and a 01 micron just in case I’m feeling like it’s an ink and wash kind of day

Ready, Set, Go!

Thats all my supplies set and ready to go! The only other things that I’ll need are discipline, which I’m working on (give me a break sheesh) as well as determination, which I have in abundance. If you’re also taking up this challenge, what will you be using? Will you use a limited palette? Are you going to let yourself use your good paper? You should because you deserve it. With that being said, you never have to be the best, just try your best. And remember to always create your own whimsy!