Got back from a very good meal of Japanese boiled stuff (boiling broth, drop raw chicken into it, etc) with lintqueen who is groovy, and brought me up to speed on several aspects of authentic Southerndom, including what the heck a debutante ball is, and the proper usage of “bless his heart” in a sentence.

And…I saw…the art supply store. I love it. I have been going to a succession of craft stores, which, while not to denegrate crafts in any way, just ain’t the same. An art supply store, for example, has illo board. And gouache. And paintbrushes that are not endorsed by Bob Ross. And racks of paper handmade from mulberry pulp chewed by Tibetan virgins and impregnated (the paper, not the virgins) with ginko fibers and red thread or whatever. And books on making egg tempera (not that I plan to, but it’s nice to have options.) And the aisles of canvas, the glorious aisles! Aeeeiii!

Also, has anyone ever tried watercolor on gesso? According to one of the guys at the store, if you lay down two or three coats of gesso, you can actually watercolor on the surface. Seemed crazy to me, but I’m willing to try it–the notion of being able to watercolor on Masonite or canvas made my heart sieze up, so I may experiment.

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