How I Saved Money on Acrylic Paint
One of the biggest costs for a painter is the canvas and, of course, the paint. I’ve been painting for over 20 years and during that time, I’ve had many fine brands of acrylic to choose from like Liquitex, Winsor & Newton, and Golden. But tubes of paint are crazy expensive.
In 1999, I got turned on to Nova Color paint by a muralist from Los Angeles. Nova Color manufactures and sells their own high quality paint, comparable to the name brands, out of California, and ships it direct to artists, cutting out the middleman–and the huge price tag.
I can buy a pint (16 oz) of paint for the same price as a 6 oz tube at the local art store. Big savings.
And big mess.
The only problem was that Nova Color ships their paint in jars, not tubes. Tubes are nice. You can squeeze just the amount of paint you need onto the palette.
With jars, the only way to apply the paint onto your canvas is with a spoon. And that gets very, very messy. And you waste paint every time you load up your palette. And so preparing my palette is something I have grown to hate. I sometimes endure nearly dried gobs of paint rather than scoop fresh paint from the jar.
The solution.
Finally, after 15 years, I found a a way to get rid of the mess and waste: refillable squeeze tubes. They weren’t easy to find, but I purchased some squeezable tubes online at REI.com that people use for camping and travel. They work perfect for paint.
You just open the end, pour in the paint, and crimp it to seal.
Done. Now I have reusable paint tubes with high quality, low priced paint.
I’m loving preparing my palette.
I think I’m going to go paint now.
Have a blessed day,
If you found this post helpful, please upvote, resteem and follow for more posts on art, art instruction, and encouraging thoughts.
See more of my artwork at: MattPhilleo.com
Be gentle with yourself, you are doing the best you can.Upvoted
Thank you, Sweetflower!
This gem of a post was discovered by the OCD Team!
Reply to this comment if you accept, and are willing to let us share your gem of a post! By accepting this, you have a chance to receive extra rewards and one of your photos in this article may be used in our compilation post!
You can follow @ocd – learn more about the project and see other Gems! We strive for transparency.
I am also looking for Artists for a project that I am doing a Steemstarter for. Thank you for your cost saving measures. We have an amazing amount of brilliant artisits (of all sorts here) and a few parents that have up and coming artists too!
Hi Clevercreator. Yes, I accept! Thank you so much, and I hope I can provide value to the artists here on Steemit.
:) a pleasure and totally unrelated to the @ocd project :) --- send me an email. I would love to see what we could get of yours out into the world :)
ART for ALL !!!
[email protected]
Hi I just got back into "civilization," where I have internet access again. I'll email you. Thanks. :)
What a great idea. How do the colours compare to the Newtons etc.?
Amazing!! So great to know! Paint is so so so expensive