Hobby, crafting, or art no-buy anyone? (perennial self-accountability thread)

Happy birthday!!!

My empty gesso pot!



This is some acrylic  gesso I picked up at the dollar store for about $1.50.  I was just about to start my first oil painting and I remembered gesso is important for something.   They also sell canvases and other art supplies at that dollar store, so I thought, why not get some emergency gesso.

Well, I didn't like it.  Stiff and clumpy.  Stinks of acrylic of course.  Needed too much water to spread, then it was too drippy and needed lots of coats.  It seems to amplify each brushmark.  For some reason, I expected gesso to have mild self-leveling qualities.  Not this one.  How does runny, watered down paint leave so many brushmarks?  I think it's at least partly evil.

To make it less white, I added a bit of dollar store acrylic raw sienna.  Mixed it in as well as my attention span would allow.  Probably 2% paint to gesso.

But it is okay for practice painting  and the boards here are some sort of partical board used for packaging.  It had been sitting in the way in the shop for ages.  Instead of tossing them, I'll use them for practice.  With all the extra water in the gesso, the boreds curled so I had to paint the back with water.

It took five coats to cover the boards.   Not sure it was enough,  but it's all used up now.  We'll see.

Nina Surya wrote:Happy birthday!!!

Thanks!

It was a little while ago, but a nice, quiet day with the chickens.  For once the sheep were well behaved as they usually do everything they can to disrupt my day.

So, here's the funny thing... It would be so much easier for me to commit to a no-buy challenge for clothes, than art/craft tools/supplies. I am actually planning - and saving for a few of those, for July (at the local, interstate fiber arts conference), and I know I'll go past 5 items, just at that event. You're so dedicated, and I applaud you!!

Although about art as business in uncertain economic times, the first quarter of the video has some great thoughts for making an artist no-buy and low-buy easier.

I'm pretty sure I said that  thrifting art supplies doesn't break my no-buy.

I found this



It's about creating father than consuming and the benifits of slowing down.  Very inspirational listen

Used up three supplies from class this week.



Two notebooks with fewer than 5 blank pages and since we can use more than that in a class, I declare them no-longer-class worthy.  There's no point carrying them back and forth, so they are now downgraded to sketching and thumbnails.  Most of the pages have messy drawing like charcoal that transferred to the back of the page.  Some of the pages I used both sides.  But there are lots of little gaps and the like I can use for rough work like these thumbnail drawings on a page where I had space leftover from figure drawing.  



The other thing I used up was a 9B pencil.  It is now too short for the pencil sharpener and the lead seems to be shattered inside the pencil at the one end.  It was fine until the last half an inch or so. I haven't dropped it.  

I've bought replacement sketchbooks and pencils pre-no-buy when they were on sale as I figure I would need a backup to use if I ever forgot one somewhere.  

Review time:

Pencil: Fantasia 6-permium sketching pencils.

I bought these years and years ago.  I want to say about 12 years ago during one of my "I'm going to teach myself how to draw" moments.  I choose this one because it's in a nice tin and the pencils are 2B, 3B, 4B, 6B, 8B, and 9B (the one I used up).  The tin has a nice closure and even though I bought more famous name brands since, I find myself reaching for this tin most often.  The thing I don't like about it is the pencils are too close together in B-ness.  There's no obvious difference between 2B and 3B at my skill level.  So I'm trying to use up the 3 and 9 first so I can put a 10B and HB in there to make a kit more to my style.

The pencils themselves are nice enough.  Every now and then, there is a moment where it feels like I have grit in the lead which I don't like.  I pick out the grit with my fingernail and it's fine.  The 9B did this three times during it's life.

I like them, but I don't know if they are worth recommending or not.  I probably won't buy this brand again.

Strathmore toned sketchbook

I love this paper.  My brain does so much better with toned paper and I like that I can use white to add highlights.  I mostly use conte and charcoal for this paper and it does smudge to the back of the page making it harder to use both sides.  Sometimes I can get this on sale and I stock up as I figure I'm using 2 books a year at my current rate.  The paper has good texture on both sides and I figure I have another year worth in the house so it's time to keep a watch on the sales (camelcamelcamel can do a price watch on amazon, but if I can, I buy these locally as full price locally is usually cheaper than amazon's sales).

Fabiano sketchbook

Good paper is like socks.  One doesn't notice them until something goes wrong.  

The texture is awesome, the larger size pad a pain to carry around, but proved useful for sketching as I can stand and  use my whole arm.  

I would buy this again if I can find it.  It's crazy-expensive on amazon and seldom available locally (but almost half the amazon price when it is).  


Anyway, got a lot more thumbnails to try for these lilacs before I paint them.  These are difficult flowers to get right.  

Finished my second Strathmore tone notebook.   Again, there are some empty spaces I can use for practicing thumbnails and sketching, but not enough for taking to class or out and about.

I broke another brush - really well.

And used up another bottle of refined linseed oil



Both of these, I've reviewed upthread.

Although I am surprised how quickly linseed oil goes.  

Also, I  couldn't resist this notebook with a built in watercolour palette.



The book is a little over 2 inches square and it has a plastic mini palette that I can keep using when the book is finished.  The paper is crap, so no fancy technique.  But it works well enough for line and wash.  I filled it with some watercolour and gouache.

I've been looking for a smaller option to put in my bag as my regular watercolour setup takes too much time to get ready and put away.  This might work.

Maybe.

Oh, and it was only 3 dollars so not a terrible break of my no buy

I can't remember if it counts if I didn't pay for it myself?

There have been a few more tubes of paint trickling in, especially for class.  My tin full of class paints is getting too full.  The paint comes in faster than I can use it up and that's the opposite of my goal this year.  I have a good storage system right now, but I don't want to have so many supplies, I need to make a new system.

But the style of painting we are learning in this class uses so little paint, and so many colours.

I also bought two special tubes of paint because this project is going so well.  I'm not to going to show them just yet to keep it a surprise. They are far more expensive than I would normally be willing to pay, but it's going to make a huge difference and I will only use a tiny bit.  

nobuy is a good idea.  I enjoy reading and maybe we try it with garden seeds LOL

Seems like one paint finished and many come in.  Is it part of goal or area for working on?

I noticed that too.

Some is mandatory for class.  But a lot isn't.   Something to focus on figuring out how to use the paint I have to get the colours I need

One of my favourite nobuy art supply videos so far.  The childhood expirence with art supplies being scarce and the first moment we can buy something special.  Chasing that emotion when buying more and more supplies later can definitely lead to supply collecting rather than using.

I lost a tube of paint.  It's an 11 dollar (cad) tube, and I used maybe a dollar of it.  It must have got confused in class and didn't make it back into my kit.  Bummed out about this as it's an incredibly useful colour.

Indian yellow is a variation of an older colour. There is no standard pigment for this colour.  Each company makes their own variations and it can differ dramatically in transparency and hue (colourness).  So it makes a significant difference to the painting to change tubes part way through.

I guess it's a trip to the big city soon.  Which means impulse buying.  Was trying to avoid that,

Maybe I should get two tubes in case one goes walkabouts again.

I was really down about losing my paint.  But the universe is a strange place.  I found a tube of oil paint in the thrift shop.  It's a colour I adore,  but not one I would normally buy for myself.  It was half price what it said on the sticker.  (Regular $11 cad or 40 plus shipping on Amazon).   Hardly used.

Thrifting doesn't count towards my no-buy.

And as I wrote this a chicken came to sing a song.  You might recognize him?

Wowzers!

Going to big box craft shop on a long weekend is rough.



Credit redit from the same shop.

I checked online and they were the only shop in driving distance with the paint I sought in stock.  Of course, upon arrival, they were out.

Also, why do they lock away their paints like that?  

Ended up buying a tube of gamblin's professional line which uses the same pigment, just less filler.  In theory it will be the exact same colour, but stronger.  It certainly is more wallet damaging.

Got some basics like linseed oil and gesso.  

Most of the paints on my list, they didn't have.  The shelves were less than half full.

I may have got a box set of paints to review and play with by accident.   It's all overstimulating in there and I'm sad how big the bill was compared to what I got.

Maybe NOW I can stop shopping for supplies and go back to focusing on making art?

I lost my glasses 4ish years ago.  Well, that's mostly true.  They gave me a headache as the distortion they were correcting for has either gotten better or much worse.  So I didn't bother to look for them.  They are in the house somewhere.  I'm nowhere near needing them for daily tasks, but I admit, my long distance vision isn't what it was.  

But sometimes I wonder at the difference between what I see and what is there.  And how this influences my painting.

Another reason for going harder on the no buy. Save up for an eye examn and glasses.  This will either improve my art or not.

Also, there is a chicken in the video

July was a lot of shopping.  Some of the paints were needed for specific painting.  Others were to make up free shipping.  Some paints were because I went to a physical shop and they didn't have the colour I needed as an individual tube, but it's in this box set (only it wasn't).  And some is panic buying because the year is 2025 and american made paints are a staple of my palette so I wanted to get backup paint before price increases.  And some of it was because they were sold out of the 37ml tube, so I had to buy the 150ml tube for twice the price and if I'm buying two colours already, might as well buy the rest of the zorn palette as I'm constantly running out of yellow ochre...although I have like 10 tubes of black and hardly use any, I needed the 150ml tube to complete the set.  Oh, and this Canadian made paint company has this fancy chrome yellow and red ochre i need for the vermeer study, so I should get some backup of my most used colours (yes, 2 more tubes of yellow ochre) to make free shipping.

So much so that I also bought extra storage for oil paints.

I don't know what went wrong.





Need to reset my no-buy.  

Art supply shops can be dangerous to the wallet!

People do often have always and never colors. That pile of black tubes might make for good trade. People into pastel or high saturation colors might be delighted to trade away their ochre colors.

Josh Hoffman wrote:

K Kaba wrote:There's a lot of marketing involved with art and craft supplies, and it's easy to get caught up wanting the newest shiny thing. I don't do no-buy generally. I tend to leave "shiny" things on my list for about three months. If I still want it after that, it comes home with me. I think the last shiny I got was the kuretake granulating watercolors. They took a couple months to restock after I first wanted them, and I was still delighted to play with them when I finally could get them.

I try to hit my stash first for anything I need, and I am a-ok with restocking (glues, papers, sealants, etc) and replacing used up tools like brushes.  Supplies for classes come from the stash first, and then the education line in the budget. Thrift and estate sale stuff I treat a lot like cooking supplies or clothes, if I know I'll use it and it's at a good price it comes home with me unless the stash has plenty of it already.

I like the 3 month policy. I have a 30 day list. Everything we need to purchase goes on that list minus the things we need recurringly like food we can't grow or butcher and items needed for repairs.

Enthusiasm dies down quick in 30 days. I bet 90 days would be a better list time period.

A lot of both of these comments makes sense. I think the "cooling off period" is applicable in so many ways, allowing time to think, reflect, get more information/experience/advice from experts or friends. Rather than spending impulsively from savings, playing a mind-game of "earning the money" to make the chosen purchase, a personal lay-away plan, could confirm your intent.

I've been away from one of my main hobbies for quite some time, but have continued to collect free/salvaged materials to use for it. So, I find myself with a slightly different flavor of a "No-Buy" challenge. In some ways, it is exactly the same... use what I have on hand first. In other ways it is different... it IS already no-buy! (except for electricity, fuel, and consumables needed to create) Except that free stuff isn't totally free, when it overwhelms the space and time available. There are some things, such as metal bars and pipes which are universally useful, but other things that catch my eye and imagination "this could be a..." or "if I had one more of this, I could make a..." or "here's 1/3 of what I need to build that thing I was talking about, now I need to find the rest!" have caused me lots of problems. Space that could be a workshop is so full of "free materials", that it is all unusable. I am starting to tackle sorting through, keeping only what I still think is useful/worth doing something with.

A long time ago, a good friend tried helped me with this same problem, and he had me label with that day's date and what I planned to do with a thing. Which in concept is a way of measuring my progress/lack thereof? assigning a sort of "arrival date" to the stuff, and possibly inferring a time limit to keeping it? These older ideas/projects/materials are entangled in nostalgia, good intentions, self-identity, sunk cost, and so on...
I could really use a self-accountability-"No-Keep" strategy for new stuff, with possibly a 30 day cooling-off period, to let the enthusiasm for an idea, and the dopamine from the discovery/acquisition fade. Revisit the idea/thing and decide whether or not to "own" the thing, or let it go.

There will be no more chance to buy art supplies this month, so I went the whole of August on my newly reset no-buy.

Wait, do pencils count?  I'm going to say it didn't as mechanical pencils are for so much more than art.  The silicone grip on mine seem to desolve into goo after a few years, but that's any silicone I touch.  Something wrong with my hands?

An observation.

On a normal day, I get up early, have an extra cuppa coffee and 2 hours creative time.

When life gets in the way of this routine, I find myself looking for art supplies to buy.  Like my brain is trying to make up for the lack of crafting or art, with shopping.  Anyone else get this way?

5 more days before I can get back to my routine.  Can I resist?

If you run out of a specific shade or tool, try substituting with what you already own before buying a replacement. Sometimes limitations spark creativity.

5 more days before I can get back to my routine.  Can I resist?

It was 11 days, and no.

Overwhelmed by unscheduled people-ing and because the fish and chip shop was closed for filming a tv show...



I bought three crazy expencive pencils at $5 each!  

Conte crayons and pencils are amazing. Almost like pastels, but firm.  I love the colour and texture of working with these.  They also match the "sketching crayons" (block thingies) i use for big sketching.

I bought sanguine, black and white.  I choose 2b for the black as it's pretty close to the others.  The eraser test says it doesn't, at least not on the paper I tried so far, so this won't be like using pencils or regular charcoal.


I've been wanting to try trois crayon (three pencils) drawing for a while now.  I don't know if this will get me there or not as it's hard to use such expensive pencils.  Mostly, I've spent the day enjoying looking at my them.



Also, need to discover how to sharpen conte.  I suspect a knife.

Here's a better video



I used se the auto translate for subtitles.  It worked pretty well.

And an even better one



Although, so far, I seem to be bad at it.

And they are getting blunt, so I need to find out how to sharpen them as apparently, it's not like a normal pencil.

I'm getting back into making stuff after a long break. So far, I have been trying to wrap up a few ufos that were around.( aside from a break to do a Solarpunk art contest entry)
I'd been resisting buying much but there was an interesting looking lot in a local house clearing auction, so I gambled. At $6, I think I made out like a bandit. The tub most of it came in is very nice, if plastic. I was really thrilled about the antique ceramic palette, its the one resting on the corner. I'm going to try and clean it up. There is also a really nice purse/satchel that came with it and it has a crossbody strap and will fit the bigger sketchbooks.
There is another shoebox full of lesser stuff that I know will be donated and some of this might find a needier home too.

I also let myself use some supplies up.
I'm making a headboard for my room by redoing one we got at an auction.  ( yeah, its a bit of an addiction, but the deals are unbeatable. Pretty sure this was done by the prop people at the Stratford Festival and it was under $5)

I decided to go all in on maximalism, since its just for me ( and it was mostly there already so I figured I should just run with it) and gilded over the top details with half of the variegated metal leaf I had stashed. It was left over from my Venetian mask making days.
Also used one of a couple of vintage carved wooden putti I found a few years ago to fill in the center of the top.
It will be a bit more subdued when it has some antiqueing wash on it but it will still be really over the top!

What a find!

Yet further proof I suck at drawing need more practice at drawing.



But having fun with my new pencils.  Next attempt, less blendy stick.

Bonus points if you recognize the original painting I was studying.

It turns out, one of my favourite places to buy fine art supplies is phasing them out.  There is no sale yet, they are just selling down the existing stock first.

This is a shame because it's one of the easiest places to go to pick up an emergency tube of paint, or go to when the supply list for a class doesn't come out early enough to get stuff shipped from Vancouver. It's also a very locally owned shop, as opposed to the others I like best which are still Canadian, but not specifically this town.

It is also on the same block of the best fish and chip spot in town!  So it's easy to get a ride if I primise the driver lunch.

There is no sale yet and no promise of a sale.

And yet, one of my favourite brands of paint is only available there, and for a very decent price.  If they don't sell it, it will be less easy to buy it in the future as customs and shipping sucks.  

My impulse is to go there and buy all the paints!  Now! What if I miss out and can't get my favourite colour again?

That doesn't seem the best plan.

I did an inventory of the paints I have of that brand.  Looked at how much paint I've used so far and what colours.  Looked at colours that are specific to the brand and ones that are more generic.

And thinking about how I use this brand.  The colours are vibrant and the walnut oil makes them much slower drying than regular oil paint, so I use this a lot for the last layers, keeping cheaper paint for underpainting.   So there is an advantage to having a stash of more generic colours.

And then there is the idea of a possible sale in the future...

I don't know.  I'm at war with myself as to whether I buy all the things now or wait and risk missing out on my favourite colours. Either way, I'm about to break my no buy hard.

Because I've veen frugal, i had enough art budget saved up to take advantage of some sales.

These are black Friday.  The paper I haven't tried before, raw umber I use in almost every layered painting and it's cheaper per volume, to get a giant tube.  The naples yellow was less than 1/3rd the price of normal. I suspect it's because the binder leakage and the cap has been replaced as the current cap isn't an awesome fit and is not as dirty as the threading.

But still, I adore Naples yellow.  It will get used.

A new notebook, not on sale, but should be good for dry and wet art.  The clay, also not on sale, is for step two of a big project.  I gotta build a well and tree.  I've been wanting to do this for a while and since I needed to make up the difference for free shipping... :)

I've got a bit more to save up for boxing day, but I think I'm going to double down on the no buy art supplies for the rest of the year.  I want to get to know what I have.

This is very interesting paper. I love the texture. I ripped it in half for this study.

Dragons are difficult to paint.  But I need more alla prima (paint in one go) practice.

The big problem will be to store these painting while they dry.  The paper seems eager to absorb the oil, so maybe that won't be the biggest issue afterall.  We'll see.

Even on sale, it's not all that much cheaper than dollar store canvas boards.  

Reassessment time.  Finding direction for art supply no-buy 2025/26

Here is what I started with.

So what are my no-buy guidelines?
- no new art or crafting supplies
- unless I used up completely the previous one AND it's something essential like yellow ochre or paper
- proudly show off empty package of finishes supplies
- it's okay to buy supplies for classes but see if I can make do with what I have first
- birthday treat okay. But just one.
- allowance for life because life is messy
- thrift store and second hand okay
- that charcoal pencil I adore but is always out of stock is okay so long as limit to $35 or less for the year.

I can get rid of the last line for sure as I don't go through drawing supplies much at all.  

- proudly show off empty package of finishes supplies

Needs more emphasis.  I get alot of joy from this...but also, I don't want it to be the goal.

- no new art or crafting supplies
- unless I used up completely the previous one AND it's something essential like yellow ochre or paper

This is the heart of the no-buy, so it stays.

- it's okay to buy supplies for classes but see if I can make do with what I have first

I have doubts if I want to keep this in.  Yes, I've used it as an excuse too many times.  Maybe change it to be surfaces only.

But also, I'm running out of classes that I can take.

- birthday treat okay. But just one.

Don't need this one anymore

- allowance for life because life is messy

Need this, of course

- thrift store and second hand okay

Maybe adding....only if it's something I actually need or use.  I seem to have 2 and a quarter french easels now.  3 portable easels.  And I use none of them as a family member bought me a pochade box that fits my style better.



My new guidelines for year two of artist no-buy

- no new art or crafting supplies
- unless I used up completely the previous one AND it's something essential like yellow ochre or paper
- proudly show off empty package of finishes supplies
- it's okay to buy surfaces for classes but see if I can make do with what I have first
- allowance for life because life is messy
- thrift store and second hand okay, but only if it's something I'll likely use this year

Oh, that naples yellow is weeping oil from the bottom, not the cap end.  Which means, I might need to buy paint tubes...within minutes of restarting my no buy.

Okay, no buy restarting after boxing day.