Saturday, October 30, 2010

Good Things in Small Packages?

Woohoo!
My stuff from Dick Blick came in today!



See, the brushes I've been using are sort of old.
Okay, they're real old, some of them have been with me for like ten years. Now I don't know what the life expectancy of a brush is, but once the bristle thingys start falling out, I suppose that's not a good sign.
For what I do, I use a whole range of brushes:



There are flat brushes for covering a lot of ground, small brushes for details and brushes in the middle for well, stuff in the middle.
Some of then are so old, they even got white hairs:



Now I have to admit, most of those brushes weren't purchased.
No, they weren't stolen either!
When I used to work in the ceramics studio, at the end of the semester we'd clean out all the lockers and sort of appropriate whatever we needed.
That was good.
The bad thing was that most of the stuff left behind was cheap stuff folks didn't mind well, leaving behind.
That's okay though, for if it wore out or broke, you just waited until you cleaned out the lockers next semester.
Well, I don't clean out lockers anymore so now I have to (gasp!) pay money for my wear and tear stuff.
Like brushes.
Okay, brushes are not wear and tear items, unless you consider them wear and tear items and treat them like wear and tear items.
If you know what I mean.
Anyways, I decided to step up to the plate and get me some real brushes, the professional kine, since well, I'm sort of a professional.
I mean seriously, don't try this at home.
So anyways, I'm all excited that my new brushes came in and I'm all giddy cause I can't wait to try them out and all and-
Hey! wait just a minute.
My brushes shrank!



What the hell!?
I don't remember ordering no midget brushes!
I mean compared to my other brushes, these were made for folks with really small hands:



These brushes are made in Spain by Escoda with squirrel hair and I know squirrels are like small creatures and all but does that mean they have to be squirrel sized?
Do folks in Spain have like really small hands?
I like to think that you get what you pay for and all, and I'm sort of embarrassed to say what exactly I paid for these brushes because if I told you, you'd think that I got ripped off or something.
I mean I think I should have at least got full sized people type brushes.
Okay, okay, maybe I'm judging a book by it's cover and all that and maybe these brushes are like the pinnacle of all brushes, the absolute last word in brushing, the brushes of the gods.
Or something.
Maybe good things do come in small packages.
Or in this case, over sized boxes.
I guess I'll go glaze some stuff and find out.

3 comments:

TrevorW�� said...

Come on you should realise that everything in Europe is small including the brushes.....!!

(Everything except the Tour de France that is)

John Romeo Alpha said...

We're thinking of a family trip to Spain. Perhaps we could include a stop at the Escoda squirrel farm. I think the kids would enjoy seeing them sheer the squirrels, assuming they use a process similar to sheep sheering.

limom said...

The Brits have invaded Flat Tire Land!
Again!
You know Trevor, I've had that sneaking suspicion ever since I saw "The Italian Job" (the original, not the remake). I just never knew that there were vertically challenged folks driving them Mini Coopers around.
Wait, don't you folks have like some giant rocks in a circle someplace? Don't tell me small folks made that! I mean I'm not THAT naive.
At least I don't think I am.

JRA, my brother just came back from Spain! The only thing I know about the place is that they draw sort of funny over there.
Actually Velazquez is okay, it's that Picasso dude and Dali I'm puzzled about.
I also cannot believe you would subject your children to nekkid squirrels!
Imagine the horror of seeing Alvin, Simon and Theodore in the buff!
Oh the horror!
On the other hand, I suppose there's some factory in the Pyrenees that supplies all the bare squirrels with Merino wool sweaters or something to get them through winter, so maybe it isn't so bad.