Paint!

I’ve been getting lots of questions lately about what type of paint I use and where can they be found.  Well, here are my thoughts on the matter!:

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Yesterday, the wife and I drove up to Joplin to resupply my paint inventory.  Now, like a majority of most carvers who paint their pieces, we use craft paints as they are readily available and come in a wide variety of colors.  Also, the quality of these paints is fairly equal no matter which brand you buy.  Also, you can generally count on the colors being consistent no matter which brand you buy.  Many years ago, while on the old Woodcarving Illustrated Carvers Forum, we had a discussion about paint and which and what was best.  I made the comment that there was no doubt some very large pot somewhere in China where all the U.S. manufacturers of craft paint went to dip their buckets to fill those cute little bottles!  OUCH!  I must have stepped hard on somebody’s toes!  Did I really mean to say that Folk Art Colors were on the same level as Joe Sonya’s or Liquid Text acrylics?  Well, yes I did!  I’ve used all these brands over the past 45 years and I can’t tell any difference…other than the price which is a pretty big difference.  So, if you want to pay that extra fee for a fancy tube of the same color you can find much cheaper at Hobby Lobby go ahead. It’s a free country…at least  for the moment.  Now if there is a complaint about those cute little bottles of paint, here’s the rub:

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 IT SEEMS THAT EVERYTIME I GO TO BUY A SPECIFIC COLOR THE MANUFACTURERS HAVE GONE AND CHANGED THE NAME OF IT!  AGAIN!!!  WORSE STILL, IT’S BEEN DISCONTINUED!  

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Red Iron Oxide is my main color I reach for when painting any character I might carve.  I’ve used it since I began carving back when I was a Boy Scout (Oops! Can I still say that?).  Well, they recently decided to get rid of it!  It’s gone…disappeared!  For all I know drained out of it’s pot and poured into the Yangtze River.  Fortunately for me a good friend sent me several bottles before it was pulled from the shelf.  Then there are the name changes.  I was looking for Yellow Ochre, a basic color I use…. yep, it was changed to Periwinkle or some other exotic name. Why can’t they just use the basic names for the basic or intermediate colors made from the basics?  Yes, I know……money!  They can sell more paint that way.  

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So here is my advice.  If you go to Hobby Lobby or Michaels or wherever here’s a suggestion… don’t look at the brand names just look for the color you want.  BUY IT NOW!  No doubt it could be missing next month or hiding under an assumed name.

So there you have my opinion on the matter.  You can write yours down below.  Comments welcome!