10 Days into My 100 Day Project #8
The first few days of my 100 Day Project included a review of my current stash of supplies, tidying up, looking back at previous work, and writing in my journal. I decided on a theme and concept — and a name: 100 Days of Enough.
It had been a couple of months since I'd picked up a paintbrush. Color swatching is what brings me back to my creative practice — what I consider the comfort-food equivalent of my art practice. It's something easy to return to, over and over again.
I started using Daniel Smith watercolors in 2019 and experimented with them a lot during my first 100 Day Project. A couple of years ago, I bought a Daniel Smith Color Dots sheet to try out more of their colors. I started swatching them last summer but never finished.
Looking at this single sheet of 66 colors, I realized I could make plenty of small paintings using nothing but these dots — which made me think I probably have more than enough paints to last a good while.
That thought prompted me to take a full inventory of all my watercolors. I tend to get excited buying new art supplies, and I often tell myself "I have enough [fill in art supply]" — but it stays abstract. Out of sight, out of mind. I was curious to see just how many watercolors (tubes, pans, travel palettes, and more) I actually had, so I built a simple database in Airtable to catalog everything and nerd out over the numbers.
The act of documenting it all brought up a mix of feelings: gratitude, and a very loud omg, that's a lot of paint, Tina. But the conclusion was clear — I have more than enough.
A quick log of what I've been up to since:
Day 4: Rediscovered my Daniel Smith watercolor sticks (completely forgot I had them). Watched part of a YouTube video for tips, then tested out a few techniques.
Day 5: Sketched and journaled at Grant Park, taking in views of the Channel Islands. (I do occasional sketches and drawings alongside the words in my journal.)
Day 6: While reading The Book of Alchemy, I came to the chapter titled The Art of Dailiness by Michael Bierut — the designer credited with inspiring the 100 Day Project. It was interesting to read about how he came up with it.
Day 7: Revisited the very first piece from my first 100 Day Project. I grabbed a palette with dried paints, a brush, a few pieces of loose cut paper, and began. I noticed how easy it is to just start when supplies are already within reach and I’m not overthinking.
Day 8: While decluttering my kids' art supplies, I found a set of quality Prismacolor colored pencils. I grabbed a sketchbook and just scribbled — and noticed that even in freeform scribbling, I gravitate toward some sense of order.
Day 9: Yellow blobs of Posca paint marker with black ink that turned into Peeps. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the shapes.
Day 10: Back to the Airtable database, this time adding pricing and purchase dates to each art supply. I was curious how much I've spent on paints and art supplies over the years. I started to think about consumption and spending. Having this database will help me whenever I’m considering buying new supplies.
Anyone else keep track of their art supplies in a similar way? If you don’t want to use Airtable, you can use Notion, Google Sheets or even a separate notebook would work, too.
Drop me a message if you have any specific questions about what I’ve shared so far.