New Exciting things!

New toys make for a happy painter! For Christmas I received a printer and scanner (thanks Santa!), and since December the scanner has been on my desk and the printer has been on the floor next to the desk. Not the best system. Last week I went to Ikea and got an Alex drawer unit, in the hopes it might be able to house all of my new technology. And it does! Printer goes on top, and once I drilled a hole through the drawer unit and the back of the top drawer for cords, the top drawer holds the scanner! Now when I want to scan something I just pull out the top drawer, and when I'm done it gets stored out of sight. I'm very pleased with my Ikea-hack!

The rest of the drawers hold things that I didn't have any good, accessible storage for before, like paper and (surprise) art supplies. I used white washi tape on the tops of the drawers, labeled with sharpie so I can tell at a glance what's inside. This is significantly better than my organizational system before, which mainly consisted of hoping I remembered which box, bag, or toolbox my most-used tools were in.

Among other new and exciting things, I received a tube of Rembrandt Vermillion watercolor, which I believe may be the last existing tube (they've discontinued the watercolor line, at least in tube form). I'm set for a while, but I'll have to find a new favorite red by the time my new tube runs dry. Luckily, my last purchase will hopefully help me out with that!

I'm a big fan of Daniel Smith watercolors; I already have several tubes. They feel great when you're using them, and they also have all their colors rated in terms of light-fastedness, opacity, staining, and granulation. They also happen to sell test sheets with over 200 different colors swatched. Which means, for $25, you can test nearly all of their watercolors! I have a handful I'm interested in specifically, and $25 is worth not buying a handful of tubes and finding out then that I don't like them. Looking forward to finding some new favorite colors!