I love an art supply recommendation, don’t you? Tell me there’s a tool that’s going to make something easier, faster, cleaner, or better and I am interested. Very interested. After all, shopping for art supplies is a hobby all of its own! There is something incredibly seductive about the idea that somewhere out there is the perfect brush, the perfect paint, the perfect sketchbook, the perfect glue, the perfect tool that will turn me into the most brilliant artist in the world!
This, of course, is silly and not true. But it doesn’t stop me from buying and trying new art supplies. I recently stumbled across a paint tube squeezer and even though I already own paint keys (those little plastic gadgets that slide onto the bottom of a metal paint tube and allow you to roll it up as you use the paint), I decided I needed the paint tube squeezer.
The paint keys don’t fit every tube I own. And they only work on metal tubes. This product promised to work on wider tubes and plastic tubes. Definitely a must-have!
Reader, it was definitely NOT a must-have. Sigh.
You can watch the video for the full roller coaster, but the short version is that several tubes of paint ended up with holes in them. Not exactly the money-saving outcome I had envisioned.
Art Supplies are Personal
There absolutely are differences in quality between products. But beyond that, there is an enormous amount of preference involved. One artist’s favorite brush is another artist’s impossible-to-control nightmare. Just look at my review of these Derwent Waterbrushes vs. the comments left on that video. (I didn’t like them and plenty of viewers of the video told me I was wrong.)
When you disagree with a product review, most of the time neither of you are wrong. We all work differently. We hold our tools differently. We have differing physical abilities. We work at different speeds. We like different surfaces, different viscosities, different levels of resistance. We make different kinds of artwork.
And all of those tiny preferences add up.
This is one of the reasons that I’ve become an advocate of asking “Does this work for me?” instead of “Is this product inherently good or bad?”
Tips on Trying New Art Supplies
When you’re trying a new art supply, I think it’s useful to pay attention to a few things.
- Does it make the process easier or more difficult?
- Does it solve a problem you actually have?
- Do you enjoy using it?
- Does it encourage you to work in a way that feels natural to you?
- After the novelty wears off, do you actually reach for it?
I’ve been blogging with craft and art product reviews for years.
And I always try to talk about why the product does or doesn’t work for me. My hope is that those whys help you understand whether or not the product would work for you.
It’s Not Wasted Time or Money
Trying something that doesn’t work isn’t necessarily wasted effort or money. You learn something about your materials, your preferences, and the way you work. And it’s a universal truth that you learn more from mistakes than successes!
In this particular case, I also got some nice new paints to use.
I mixed some of the damaged paint into new custom colors that I really like (and will use) and I wouldn’t have done that if not for the holes in the tubes. Shall we call it lemonade from lemons?
Was this the studio afternoon I had planned? Absolutely not. But art practice is full of that. Something goes wrong and then you figure out what to do next. If you quit every time something went wrong, you’d go absolutely nowhere. Perseverance is a great skill to have in art, as in life!
To me, the ability to respond to the unexpected is much more valuable than owning the perfect collection of supplies. Truth be told, there isn’t a perfect collection of supplies. There is simply the collection of things that works for you, right now, for the work you’re making. And don’t forget that you usually discover what those things are by trying a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t work!
Thanks for stopping by!
