Melbourne

Buying from Kmart and plastic isn't good. But I guess on my budget it is what it is.

I haven't tried them out yet and they're bound to be less good than real art supplies but I'm kind of hopeful...? so far. Getting a small cheap acrylic kit on clearance from Kmart means $3 got me 12 small tubes of paint, a tiny plastic palette tray about the size of a small chocolate bar (a bit longer than a Fry's Turkish Delight), 3 cheap little brushes, plus a sketch pencil, eraser and sharpener for spares.

It was picked loosely according to a list, specifically the 'absolute beginner' list. It's not perfect but I possibly got kind of close.

Some thought went into this. I really did my best to get a minimal number of tubes with as many of the versatile primary colours as possible. There are no names on the tubes but I looked at the colours on the tube by eye. It's looking like there's a warm and a cool version of some colours which is unexpectedly good for Anko.

As you'd expect though the colour selection for a lot of the paint sets on there seemed kind of shit and very likely aimed at kids. Most had a bunch of flashy tertiary colours but didn't include all of the basic ones I was looking for. Even with this one I don't actually own a colour wheel so will have to just swatch them on slips of paper and hold them up to the monitor to see how close the actual colours inside match up to what I was going for.

But I chose this set for the following:

The cool bright yellow colour, because even if it's not exact, a lemon colour can apparently substitute for cadmium yellow (?? and if not there's the darker warmer one to try). They do look a little bit like Hansa yellow light and medium from the colour on the tube but we'll see. Perhaps if needed they could be mixed to make a colour in the middle very similar to cadmium yellow...

The two blues look quite close to cyan and ultramarine as far as I can tell, if my monitor is accurate and I'm looking at the right colour from the varieties shown. Very nice. One warm and one cool, both seem to be popular colours. Options.

The dark red is nice to have if it's crimson. It looks similar from the tube. (There is no warm vermilion red though - I'd have to see if I can make that with the orange but I don't think that will work if this red is cool crimson. It might work if it's closer to cadmium red which is more neutral?? I will have to swatch this colour to work out whether it's more warm or cool but the label very much looks like cool. And apparently mixing colours from crimson can make some colours desatured or muddy... makes sense as it's not a true primary red and the blue in it could mess with the brightness of warmer colours.)

I would have really liked this set to contain magenta though, as a primary for CYMK. I want to be able to mix a wide range of colours from very few tubes so that's the mindset I was choosing with, but there is a tube of purple/violet in there too. So while you can't mix proper magenta and it could end up a bit off, that could at least mix up an approximation while I'm learning. At least if the red is crimson there'll be blue in there that would play well with violet.

There's also the white, the black and a dark brown. Which is really solid, you need those.

But the brown has me a bit worried. I saw to get burnt umber and the tube label looks like a cooler dark brown so could be closer to raw umber or sepia. I don't fricking know. I'll have to crack it open and compare a few to see what I really have.

I had initially felt more confident buying this set as thinking I was getting something very close to the burnt umber (which I now see is more a warm reddish brown, must have confused it with another popular earth tone) so I hope I haven't fucked up. Because I am not buying more tubes. It would have been nice to have both a warm and a cool brown like with other colours. Apparently that's called split primaries. I would have traded off the violet and the orange for a second option of red and a second option of brown, as as those are secondary colours that can be mixed. But beggars can't be choosers. Maybe if this brown is too cool it could be altered.

I'll see if it can be mixed down with orange. If it is raw umber that could counteract a supposed 'green hint' and the coolness, and black to darken further if need be. If it's sepia which is more neutral that will be closer but the red might matter. But if there is 'a green hint' to it, is the complementary orange to warm it up going to desaturate the result? Will mixing warm and cool make it muddy? Will the dark red do to warm it and darken the value, and might the warmth or coolness of that red affect things? Argh!! I'm new to colour theory and teaching this shit to myself!

I will say one final thing too, the paintbrushes don't look nice. They're small and low quality, stiff synthetic bristles that may not apply evenly, only slightly different sizes and all basic flat style. But it's fine for a beginner who may not commit. It's to be expected and the total I paid for this whole set was less than a cheap pack of brushes alone.

Nice or specialised brushes can wait. I didn't even buy a palette knife as while a variety pack was on there I would only want one. The tip of an old butter knife or a toothpick would be fairly inflexible for mixing but whatever.

The tubes of the exact proper colours from art supply shops can wait as well. I did see one set of primaries that was nice quality... This one is what I was leaning towards. CMYK. The exact right primary colours plus titanium white, black and burnt umber to adjust.

But I'm currently struggling with art block and bad anxiety around art, not even drawing or doing digital at the moment, and hopping about all over the place any time I do try.

For a dabbler like me I will definitely try to cheese it with a $3 kit first rather than spend $30 on the proper paint alone. I just really hope my guesstimation of off brand colours don't come back to bite me and make learning to mix colours that much harder.