Erdos Had The Number First

I paint a little, watercolors, and I’m not that good.

Until yesterday, I’ve stuck to pans. Mostly because
they are cheaper, but yesterday I splurged. All I have
to say is “holy shit”.

I never knew. About a month ago I’d gone to a little watercolor seminar. The woman teaching the seminar made
an offhand comment about how you should never really use pans because the color qualitiy is poor. I’ve always had trouble getting the amount of color that I’d want, especially in washes. I thought it was just poor style on my part (which is part of it). But I need a specific color the other day to finish a painting and I thought, hey, I’m a big spender, I’ll buy a tube.

It was amazing. It’s the first time I’ve had a wash that I didn’t have to struggle to get pigmented enough. The problem is the tubes are just too expensive. I was looking at one (Cobalt blue, looked awesome, a bold blue) and it was 20 bucks. I didn’t buy it because, quite frankly, I’m not that good of a painter. So I got some cheaper tubes.

If you want to start painting with watercolors, do yourself a favor: buy tubes.