Box of Tricks

Drawing day sixteen

Went on a clearing up tizz on the weekend, and finally tackled The Box of Tricks, the tool box that I cart to school to carry all my art supplies (well, most of 'em, sometimes I need a supplemental bag for extra paints or printing stuff!). It's been sitting, mostly, since I finished classes in November, except for the numerous times I've rummaged about in its guts for paint/pencils/tape/charcoal/etc to work on my own non-school art. It was a big mess:

Box of Tricks before

Box of Tricks interior before

So I dragged everything out of it: charcoal, scalpels, pastels (several boxes), pencils, erasers, pens, graphite, pencil case, apron, palette (white lid off an icecream container - works just as well as a proper boughten palette!), gluesticks, compressed charcoal, palette knife, at least a dozen tubes of acrylic paint, conte crayons, ruler, water jar, paper tape, masking tape, brush roll, paint rag, no-name hairspray (the cheapest I can find - works just as well as spray fixative, at about a quarter of the price but it is rather stinkier), paper stumps and a bit of sandpaper to clean them, scissors, bottle of black ink, sticky tape, film canister for water, butterfly clips, dust mask, unorthodox painting tools (alfoil, cotton buds, metal scourer, feathers, chopsticks, sponges, cotton balls). Yep, I need all that, sometimes more :)
There was the interesting week we did life drawings with canola oil, soy sauce, curry powder and worcester sauce...

Wiped all the surfaces down, shook the empty box outside - a veritable rain of charcoal shards, pencil/pastel dust, bits of paper dust. Ew! Fetched another pencil case and a couple of little boxes to rehouse some pastels and began to jigsaw it all back in.

Box of Tricks after

Box of Tricks interior after

I managed to put everything back in, much neater than before, and made a list of stuff I need to restock. Mostly charcoal and various shades of paint, plus fixative. And I separated the pencils into another case from the ink/marker pens and erasers, so it should stay a lot cleaner. I hope.

I wish The Box of Tricks were like the Tardis, larger inside than outside, because there's still a large container of white and another of black paint that won't fit. Don't want to get a larger box, it's heavy enough as is. Ah well, back to the extra bag, I guess :)