the tools that make an artist

Or in my case, a visual journal artist. According to the book, “The Decorated Page” the following items should be in my EVERYDAY supply kit:

• small jar with screw on the lid full of clean water
• small watercolor set, either in tubes or pan, including the basic colors: alizarin crimson, pthalo or ultramarine blue, gamboge yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, pthalo green and payne’s grey
• #12 round watercolor brush
• mixing tray
• scissors
• small watercolor pencils
• plain lettering guide
• rubber stamp carving material
• linoleum carving tool set
• dye-based and pigment-based stamp pads
• waterproof balck fine line pen
• small container of citrus-based gel-type paint stripper for solvent transfers
• collage items-labels, stamps, old letters, wrapping paper, magazine images, other memorabilia, and ephemera from your life
• color and black-and-white photocopies for transfers (photos, maps)
• flat, soft 1-inch wide brush
• rag
• PVA or acid-free permanent roll-on adhesive
• glue brush (if using PVA)
• white gouache
• small self-healing cutting mat
• graphite pencils and eraser
• decorative edge scissors (1 or 2 pairs)
• envelopes
• tracing paper
• graph paper and other kinds of drawing/writing paper
• watercolor paper or a set of blank watercolor postcards/notecards
• table salt in shaker

These my friends are the BARE ESSENTIALS, I’ve got less than 7 items on this list.

But when you think of it, does my creativity diminish if I don’t have the so-called essentials?

I think not, I could have all the tools in the world but I could still be stuck in a rut. One thing I’ve learned from childhood is when you want to get something done but you have limited resources there’s only one plausible solution- IMPROVISE.

I still remember making my own notebooks and planners when I was 8, and selling some of them to my classmates. Or how, when I was so inspired by MONOPOLY, I created a board game of my own, and forced my sister and brother to play along with me.

One of the things that was inculcated in my mind was that you never have to let your limitations limit you. And maybe right now, I don’t have the stuff that the books recommend but I can still create, it just forces me to think out of the box and harnesses my creative juices even more.