New Year´s Eve

No, I will not publish any special New Year´s drawings here, I mean, how original could it be? A drawing of fireworks? Don´t think so. A watercolor of champagne glasses? Nope. New Year´s eve is a great day, a fine celebration, but to try to draw something "Newyearsevy" just to wish you all a happy new year feels a bit forced.

Instead I´m just going to show you what happens when I get a lot of time on my hands (17 days off work around Xmas and New Year´s - yay!). I found this little gem among my other art materials, a Winsor and Newton bijoux box of some kind. I never used it much, because the construction of it irritated me a bit.
Firstly, there´s a stupid little water compartment in it (hence the little cap, see image below), containing about the amount of water that would save an ant from dehydration. How did they imagine anyone would be able to paint with so little water? Even in an emergency situation? It doesn´t take up much space though, so I can live with it. But they could have left it out of the design.
Secondly, and this is worse than the water container, there are two metal rods inside that you have to squeeze in between the half pans to keep them in place, and these rods cover quite a bit of the surface of the pans, making it hard to pick up paint on the brush.
I love to be able to have watercolors with me in a small box like this, but it has to work properly and this one didn´t.

Now, with too much time, there´s always something you can do about badly designed art supplies. I threw out the rods, and discovered that without them there´s a whole lot more room in the box, so I could squeeze in two extra pans in it. I decided which order I wanted them all in, and then I simply glued them in with a glue gun. The box is incredibly small, only 8,5 x 6,3 cm (3.3 x 2.5 inch) and works just fine if I´m not out to make huge paintings. This little fella will replace my old customized box, which has served well until now (starting to look more than a little rugged, though).

Now that you know what I´m up to, except drawing, I´ll go back to slacking and eating all this unhealthy but incredibly tasty holiday food. Hey, it´s only New Year´s Eve once a year!

I´ll be back soon with some drawings. Until then - Happy New Year!