I was beginning to worry about the supply of art mediums, due to the lock down. Most of my paint tubes were on the verge of extinction, and I colour most of my drawings only in paint or colour pencils these days. Even my most used colour pencils like black , white, blue etc., looked so tiny, that I was sure that they would get over if I did another painting in colour pencil.
This was when I discovered a large box in the corner of my room. Not remembering what was inside, I opened it. I had shut it tight using tape and all, so I had to cut through the edges. Then I opened it, I gasped. It was a box full of my old art mediums! Boxes and boxes of oil pastels. Collections of brushes, shading pencils, paint bottles, and water colour tubes. I was actually shocked. I had never realised or remembered that I had so many supplies here at home itself.
First, there were two old, used, big sets of Camlin Oil Pastels. Then a used, big set of Pelikan oil pastels. Pelikan oil pastels are from Germany, and there was even a full, unused, new set which my mom had ordered long back for me. And lots of other foreign brands of Oil pastels (also unused) were there in the box.
Since I had started using paint, I didn’t even open these boxes, forget using them. Now there were still there, and I can only wonder whether I still remember how to use them, because I had used oil pastels a long way back, almost 3-4 years ago.
That was not all. There were 3-4 packets of unused pencils too. Shading pencil sets as well as normal ones. Completely unused and brand new. All of them were brought by my uncle from Dubai. And here I was, struggling with old shading pencils, when I had this treasure inside my very room.
Then were the paints. Unlike pencils and pastels, paints are bound to dry up. Yes, there were boxes and boxes of paint bottles lined up in them, but I’m sure that more than half of them would’ve dried up. There were 3-4 boxes of water colour tubes too, which looked fresh new on the outside, who knew about the inside?
There were brushes too, which were, again brought from Dubai by my uncle. I had kept them away from my reach myself, so that I would not be tempted to abandon the usable (but looking old) ones and open the new packets.
So I’ve decided to keep paint aside now, and try oil pastel paintings and more pencil shading works from now on, until I get to go to the stores and make a big purchase on paints and drawing sheets!
