I’m about a quarter of a way through a new painting which, rather frustratingly I’ve had to pause on. I don’t usually like to do this, preferring by far to complete a painting in one sitting.
It’s far too early to know whether it’s going to work out or not so I’m quite reluctant to share it at this point.
Alongside this, I was about to order to some new paints. One of the suppliers I usually buy from had a sale on and I thought it would be a good opportunity to stock up. My daughter, however, in a display of far greater wisdom and maturity than I’m capable of, suggested that I should see what paints I already had before ordering any more.
I have various stashes of paints squirrelled away around the place, but by far the biggest is a large tupperware cake container that’s full of paints acquired over the years.
Most of my paints I’ve collected second hand on eBay, often as bulk purchases where I’ve bought 5 or 6 tubes of paint, of which three or four are what I want, but two or three are randoms. Most of my paints end up in this tupperware tub even though I hardly ever look in it!
I was grateful then that my daughter had far more patience than I do and was willing to help me out – not least because it saved me a small fortune!
It turns out I’ve got enough paints to open up a small shop! I think my daughter also enjoyed ridiculing me “oh come on Dad! Who needs 12 tubes of yellow ochre!?”
Once we’d done the stocktake and established that I don’t actually need any paints… I still found myself ordering a few more, just in case!
I’ve recently shared this story elsewhere and one bright spark came up with a great suggestion: wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of ‘paint-swap’ system! I really love this idea and I don’t know why but I would far rather swap any paints that I’m unlikely to use than I am to sell them!
So, while I’m working out some kind of paint swapping process – do let know if you have any paints you’d like to consider swapping for any that I have!