How to keep creating when art supply prices are skyrocketing
and more blah blah blah about my art journals
These are random pages from various art journals of mine. I generally have a handful of journals that I’m playing in at any given time. I choose whichever one that suits my mood when I sit down to paint.
It’s hard for me to stick to just one book because they all have different themes, and are various sizes.
I have one small and a few large books for abstracts right now. I also have several small art journals for portraits, & at least 3 for large portraits.
This is one of my favorite two page spreads in a book that I’m pretty sure was meant for landscape paintings. Gotta think outside the box when you’re an artist. I bought a stack of these books in bulk years ago when I was painting landscapes, and I’m still using them today.
I also have a square “muted color” art journal for portraits. I need to paint 392 portraits to finish this book. I’m only about 1/4 the way done. Might be a while. ⏱️
I also have journals that have a random theme. There isn’t any rhyme or reason, which is super fun. If I have 5 minutes to kill, I can just open the book, do whatever I need to do, and go about my day.
I also like to have a stack of Mead composition notebooks on hand that I buy in bulk when they go on sale. I’m running low, so I need to start keeping an eye out for back to school sales, which will begin here in about a month. School usually starts about mid August.
If you ever feel like you don’t want to use your precious art supplies because it’s so expensive to buy more these days, (and prices keep skyrocketing), I hear you.
I just spent $115 on some gesso, black acrylic paint, Stabilo pencils, and 10 - 8x10 flat panels. I looked at the little box on my doorstep and thought..that’s it??!! That’s all you get for over a hundred these days??!! Almost seems criminal.
Don’t let the high prices stop you, tho. If you’re like me, and the thought of not making art is depressing, get yourself a cheap notebook, and some kid art supplies (Crayola) or student grade paint, and go to town. You won’t regret the time or money spent.
Dick Blick brand is good enough for art journaling, imo, but it’s starting to get pricey also & if you don’t use it fairly quickly (within a year, I’d say), it separates and becomes unusable. I also like Liquitex Basic acrylic paints, which comes in big tubes. It’s a bit more expensive than Blick, but higher quality..again, imo.
Another favorite substrate of mine is construction paper. I make my own art journals with it, and use chipboard for the covers.
You can get 50 sheets for less than $10. I cut the paper in half twice, and then glue them together, so I get 4 small pages out of each sheet. I wrote about making my own art journals here.
Okay that’s gonna do it for me today. I hope this weekly letter makes sense. I got a long winded, and rambled on today. I don’t feel like spending time to go back and edit now. It is what it is, and I’m gonna go ✌️out in front of the ac. Until next time, may you be well, happy and peaceful. ☸️
What I’m reading:
Margo’s Got Money Trouble - I had this one on hold and it became available on my library app. I’m 1/3 of the way finished. I thought I liked it at first because the writing’s good, but now it’s turning into a book about OnlyFans and WWE wrestling. 😒 Really not my cup of tea. Oh, well. I’m probably gonna dnf it later tonight, and move on to something I like better.
My artwork is available on Daily Paintworks (US shipping only), Etsy, and eBay
I ship globally from Etsy & eBay - for now. This is subject to change without notice, since I can’t predict what the US government is going to do on any given day.
You can also find me on pinksky & blsky, where I post multiple times a day.
I’ve also been posting notes here on Substack in between these longer posts.
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You've done some beautiful work!
I've just started doing papier mache, which is cheap (cheap PVA glue and recycling paper and cardboard). But then I paint on top, and acrylic paint is expensive...