STUFF! What’s in the Cart?

What is in this cart you ask? You won’t believe it. I stuffed it with lots and lots of incentive is what I did, as part of my ongoing series about my moving and purging and mentioned in my last post, earlier today HERE.

Now all the stuff I packed inside of this is 99% used, but hey, that’s why it’s such a bargain. I also spent a shit load of time carefully and thoughtfully putting it together with love, so I do hope someone will be happy with this purchase of only $250. That, or a mere offering of something close to it.

First of all, here’s the perfect little art starter kit in a purple ArtBin. It comes complete with nice watercolor brushes (individually selected by me, not ones from a kit), a full set of beginner watercolor paints and a small round (cheap) metal palette, not pictured here. I also threw in a few individual porcelain ones.

Then, there’s a Speedball Intermediate Deluxe Screen Printing Kit. I think everything is here, including the instructions. There is still a brand new screen that is clean and unused. I’ve already made two prints with the kit so far. One was a one-off and the other was an edition of three. I flew by the seat of my pants, didn’t really read the directions and didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

 

If you open up the top drawer you’ll find things like oil pastels and some mediums (cold wax medium and stand oil), some paint pens, pencils and a couple of palette knives. There’s a bit of brush cleaner too. You’ll need that for a few brushes I selected.

Most of these are for oil, but you can use them for acrylic if you wish. A couple of them I’ve had for years. It’s because I have taken great care of them. If you know how to clean your oil brushes properly, you can keep ’em a very long time (I have a few that are 20+ years old). Clean them well enough and you can use them for acrylic after you’ve used them on oils.

To the left are various miscellaneous pencils. I say, draw every day if possible. It never needs to be “good.”

Oil painting is intimidating to some people because the paint stays wet and the clean up seems like a mess, but if you know a little bit about what to do, you can learn. You can always ask me for some tips. Oils are like no other kind of paint because the colors stay alive for hundreds of years. Yes, they take forever to dry, but you can not beat their color brilliance. Here’s a bunch to start you off. Most of the tubes are old and leaky (sorry) and the Winsor & Newton “student grade” brand, Winton, but these are very often used by pros despite them being less expensive and seemingly second tier. They might as well be professional grade. Their chemical composition is the same. Same lightfastness, same permanence, same binder.

For inspiration on painting, especially in using oil color such as these, I’ve added a couple of books to sweeten the deal. One is a Taschen Basquiat book with lots of color pictures, and the other is a very inspirational read by Shaun McNiff about letting go called Trust the Process.

 

Watercolor is also a favorite of mine and I have lots of that for you here in the next drawer, as well as some acrylic paint. There are some really luxurious German-made watercolor pencils here too, a brand new box of sparkly crayons and a 4×4 inch canvas. All these prac-near new (sans the black) watercolor paint tubes are professional grade (Van Gogh and Da Vinci brands):

If that’s not enough watercolor for you, I have this never-been-touched kit in a wooden box that someone gave me years ago. Only the black tube has dried out. The rest are good though. I’m sure these are beginner paints. The brand is Essentials. I have never heard of them, but they certainly covered a spectrum of color and the brushes seem pretty good:

The last drawer has some rather miscellaneous stuff in it…

There’s a wood burner and a glue gun. Wrapped up is a dozen glue sticks for the gun and that scissors cuts in a jagged-zig-zag pattern. Then another clean 4×4 inch canvas, only it’s a 3/4 inch edge instead of a 2-inch like the other one. There’s also a little box of random picture hanging hardware and inside of that round container are little colored wood pieces I kept for collage. Maybe they’ll be useful some day…

Here’s some small stuff to make art on (unless you want to buy some bigger canvases or panels from me–let me know); a pad of thick watercolor paper (#140) and three canvas boards. I don’t remember why I had a pad of acetate sheets, but here those are too.

How about a set of fabric paints? These are all full.

Okay, I love this thing (pictured above). It’s a mini paper sewing machine. I used this to make the detail on the cover edging of my first Artist’s book, 1-SELF.

You can also have my Snoopy/Peanuts lunch box! I threw a few random things in it: washers, wood screws, thumb tacks and tiny clothespins. Because you never know.

We’re winding down now, obviously. Not to balk at a Snoopy lunch box. Hells no. We’ll end off with some nice paper scrap I had laying around from McManus & Morgan:

a little bit of gesso, sand gel medium …I never had a chance to use. And this little wood-carved book holder.

So what do you say? Do you want to roll this cart away for 250 bucks? Do you think it’s worth $250? I originally paid around $350 for the cart itself.

Please let me know when you want to come get it. carol@esart.com.

Now onto packing up the rest of this mess!

 

Hmmm, maybe I am making some progress?

 

3 thoughts on “STUFF! What’s in the Cart?

  1. Katya Riley January 3, 2018 / 6:04 am

    Hey Carol – are you doing ok? Happy Xmas and New Year, or do you avoid these things?… Wish I could call by and pick up some of your brilliant stuff on offer – Good luck with ‘down-sizing’, or whatever you call it. Take care and be happy. Love ,Kate xx

  2. Carol Es January 4, 2018 / 11:41 am

    Hi Katy,
    How are you doing? I think about you and how you are. I have been better. Depression, displacement, the unknown, change, loss of ambition and giving up on lifelong creative endeavors…it’s all extremely challenging, I’ll say that much. I am just trying to stay distracted as much as possible and look for the absurdity of it all.

  3. Roz Myles January 5, 2018 / 8:16 am

    Wish I had room…will share.

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