How to Start Painting-Supplies, Setup, and Mindset Tips!

Hey everybody, it's Christie Renee Hawkins with The Social Easel, and we are here today to talk all about supplies that you need to get started on your painting journey, how to set up your space for success no matter what that space may be, if you have a studio or if you are having to set up at a kitchen table like I did for years. And then we're going to talk a little bit about mindset, because mindset is one of the most important things when it comes to starting something new and being in the right frame of mind for success. So let me know in the comments if you are excited about this. If you want to hear more about supplies, I'm gonna give you an overview of like some basics that I recommend to get started, and then I'm going to share with you some of the extras. The most important thing to remember is that you do not have to have all of these things to get started. Don't let supplies or having exactly what I talk about today be the reason that you don't start your creative journey or that you don't jump in to painting. Um, I know just talking to my tribe sisters over the past few weeks that Some have kind of been in the funk at the beginning of the year, maybe a little bit of the winter depression. Can anyone relate? Um, I know January and February are always hard for me, and I hope this is motivation. If even if you already are creative, even if you're already painting, maybe you haven't done it in a while, and maybe you've made excuses as to why you can't do it. I hope today's lesson with you helps, um, inspire you, helps get you excited about jumping back into it. So we are going to go ahead and get started. I will be dropping links in the comments, so make sure you're paying attention to those. And then we will be putting some things across the screen as well of where you can get some of these supplies. So some are in my Shopify store, they're made by me— my paintbrush set, palette knives, aprons. Color wheels, that type of thing are going to be available in my Shopify store. And then I'm going to have another section of items that you can find on my Amazon store. Now, it doesn't mean you have to buy them from Amazon. A lot of what I'm talking about you can find at any craft store nearby, but Amazon is where I create my own storefront with my favorite things, so it's an easy place for you as the customer to go and look at all the different things that I recommend, and it's all in one spot. And who doesn't love Amazon and their fast shipping? So, um, I'm gonna go over those different things and then I'll be sharing links with you as well. Hey, hey, hey! Awesome! Cheryl said, I'm so excited, my brushes just got delivered. Terry said, I haven't painted in a long, long time. I'm really looking forward to this. Good, I'm excited. Um, Marcy said, I'm very excited to get started again. It's been a year since I've painted. I had my shoulder replaced. Ow, I can't even imagine. So I'm glad you're able to get back to painting again. Um, and yes, this will be available on replay. You can come back if you went to the link, uh, via text or via email. You can just go back to that same link for the replay, or you can find it on my YouTube channel or my Facebook page. Okay, so I'm gonna scoot this chair over for a minute because behind me I've started kind of just gathering some of my, my favorite things and things that I recommend to get started. So I'm going to start with the things that are in my store, and I'm gonna, um, and a lot of these I'm gonna throw this link in here for you. If you haven't already downloaded my free floral inspiration guide, I highly recommend downloading it A lot of these links are included in that guide, um, with some of my favorite items, um, tips on mindset, color theory, and over 10, um, different tutorials on florals. So if you haven't done that yet, it's absolutely free. The link is in the comments. And then I am going to throw up this banner really quick. If you text the word shop to that phone number on the screen, this will give you the direct link to my Shopify store. Um, you You can also just find it by going to thesocial easel.com, so it's super easy to find, but that will send you the direct link to your phone. So there's a couple things from my store that I'm going to start with, and obviously the most important thing other than paint, um, is paintbrushes. So a couple years ago, I actually created my own set of paintbrushes designed the bag to carry these in. So it's super convenient. You can actually fit your brushes and your palette knives all in the bag. So if you want to take these while you're traveling, you can do that. But this is a 15-piece brush set. This is a brand new one, so they're— they come still in their wrap, and then each one is labeled with the Social Easel, and they're also numbered. And the reason that I do that is because when I'm teaching um, online, these are the brushes that I will be using. So you'll hear me say, um, I'm gonna grab my, like, number 6 out of the set, or my 13, whatever number it may be. That's just to help you at home, um, better know what kind of brush to use. Um, the key to— if you don't buy my brushes, you want synthetic bristles. So you don't want natural hair. They're not going to give you— for the type of painting that I teach anyways, synthetic is going to be a better paintbrush for you. And I I just love the quality of our brushes. They will last you for years if you take care of them appropriately, and we include a free brush guide on how to take care of your brushes when you buy this set as well. So that is number one, is paint brushes. If you can't get these, get synthetic paint brushes, and there are a variety of different sizes and styles. So I've got some rounds, some thin liners, fan, angled, um, filbert, flat. There's a variety because I use different brushes, um, for different styles. All of the information about my brushes and what brush to use for what is also included in that free quick guide. So again, make sure you click the button, um, to sign up and get that quick guide. You can download and also go to the links digitally when you do that. So number 1 is my brush set. Number 2 is the palette knives. This is what they come like, and you don't— this is one of those, like, don't feel like you have to have this to get started, but I use it in a lot of my tutorials, and palette knife is one of my favorite things. And so I have my own palette knife set as well. So that's them in the package. And then I've got— what did I do with them? Here they are. I've got several of them here as well. This is what they look like after they're used, um, paint all over them. But they're great for not only creating, um, a different type of texture that you can only get with palette knife, you can't get with brushes, but they're also really good for color mixing. And color mixing is going to be something that we talk more about in the upcoming weeks, and I think you guys are going to be really excited with some of the surprises that I have to share. So if you want links to these, just text the word shop. It's not going to work if you just put it in the comments, we don't have that set up on this video, but you need to text it to that number that you see on the screen. Um, and then you may want to get an apron. I have my Trust the Process aprons that I have designed. They have two front pockets in them, so it's perfect if you like to keep your brushes on you. Um, and you can also see what mine looks like. I wipe my palette knives on my apron, I wipe my brushes on my apron, I wipe my hands on my apron. I am a very messy painter, so, um, I either have to paint in an apron or in clothes that I don't care about getting dirty. So you don't have to get an apron, but if you want one, we have them in the shop. And then we also have color wheels available. So this is something that I recommend that every artist has in their creative space, because once you understand colors and value and saturation, it's really going to open up um, your mind to a lot more as far as art's concerned and learning how things work together. So highly recommend a color wheel. Then there are several different options for palettes. For years and years, I literally would just use a paper plate or Styrofoam plate, um, and then over time and like being here in the studio, I would try some different things out. Um, so you can definitely just do a paper plate or Styrofoam plate. Um, we have these clear acrylic palettes. You can see this one's dirty and it's been scraped off, but I love these clear palettes because, um, you can hold them. So there's like a little thumb hole here. Um, you can hold it, you can put your paints on it, and then all you have to do to clean it is get it wet, and then you can just, with a flat edge razor, you can just scrape off the paint and clean it before your next use. So these are available in my shop as well. So those are the clear acrylic palettes. Now when you get them, they are going to come like this. This is the film that protects them, so you will peel, peel that film off before you get started. Another option which we discovered at my live event was amazing, and I absolutely love these. So we carry them in the store now. They're ice cube trays, um, with a lid, but I use them for paints that I know I want to use again and I don't want to worry about them drying up. This is also fabulous if you are going to be mixing your own colors, because you can mix your own colors in each one of these wells, and the lid on it is going to seal them, and it's going to stop them from drying out. And I mean months. I had leftover paint from my live event 2 Octobers ago, and like 6 months later, I was like, there is no way that paint is still good. And I opened it, and you might have a little dry shell like on the top, but underneath, that paint is fresh and still usable. But this is also like, if you, uh, really want to get into color mixing, which I highly recommend recommend. So you're not reliant on having an exact name brand or color of paint. I really, really recommend getting these. And this has 14 different wells, so you could make 14 different colors. Or if you just are one of those people that you have your favorite colors— you can, you can tell I have my favorite colors behind me— ones that you know you want to use all the time, just keep them in here. And you can even take a Sharpie and write the names on top of them. Or if you're color mixing— again, more to come on that in the next few weeks— you could even write in Sharpie the color combination that you did to create that new color. So this is super, super handy. I love having them. I just brought some new ones upstairs because I am going to be mixing my own colors to share with you guys, um, very soon. And show you how I do that. So those are everything that I just talked about, is all available in my Shopify store. Um, so I'm going to take that link off. Oops, sorry. So the next couple items that I'm going to talk about are going to be in my Amazon store. So you can text the word Amazon to that same phone number. These are just keywords that we set up through our text. So you don't need to type a sentence or anything, just type that one word that is our keyword and it will automatically send you the links to the stores that I'm talking about. So this will go directly— oh, thank Tammy, that's a good idea. She said those are great for classes too. So if you are teaching paint classes or if you want to do some in-home paint parties with your friends Those are awesome because they can take them home with them if they didn't finish their painting, or maybe they want to touch it up later. That way they don't have to go out and buy their paint. So you could get those for the people that do paint parties with you. Sandra said, do you offer supplies at a lower rate than elsewhere? Um, no, I don't have any kind of wholesale capability, so they're not going to be drastically lower than what you would get them in any other store. We do it more as a convenience, so the things that I use the most plus the things that I have created specifically for my business are all in one spot. Okay, so still talking about palettes, you may have seen me use— Alexa, stop! I don't know how she thought I said her name. Um, but you may have seen me use these if you've watched my tutorials before, and this is available in my Amazon store, and I love them. This is a tear-away palette. You can tell I haven't torn all of mine away. This is page after page of dried palettes from different paintings, and I just flip the page and keep going, but you can rip them off. The other thing I love about it is it's got the thumb hole um, like the acrylic one that I have in my store. But these are fabulous, and it's like a wax paper on top, and then, um, yeah, just like a film on the back. But they work awesome, awesome, awesome for mixing colors on. So you can tell here I've done a lot of playing and a lot of color mixing that I'll be sharing more with you guys about. So that is available in my Amazon store. And then, um, you will hear me talk about this till I'm blue in the face. This is, um, probably other than paintbrushes, paint, this, it would be the next thing that I would tell you you absolutely have to get. Because this is when you, um, are painting, it's not always just about painting on a canvas. You're still learning, you're still tweaking your skills. I literally will never stop using these. It doesn't matter how many years I've done art. I tell, you know, the ladies, these are like sketchbooks for painting. So you can see in here, just— this is how you can start playing with different colors and swatches. You can see on— sorry, I'm showing the wrong page. You can see even here, I'm just playing by adding white to a color to look at all the different colors. That I can get. You can do full paintings in here. This is watercolor and pen and ink. Um, you can do sketches. Um, here's another full painting. So a lot of times women will say, well, I'd love to paint, but I don't have room to hang all of that in my home. That is why a mixed media pad is so awesome, because you can do full paintings in here. And if you love them— this is an 11 by 14 And if you love them, then you can tear them out. There's a perforated edge and you can frame them. So, um, and then again, it's just for— I'm just going to show you some of my sketches. I don't know if you can see that, but that is me sketching out an idea for a pumpkin, a Halloween pumpkin topiary, um, that I have taught inside of my tribe. I'm going to flip— try to flip to another one. Where I can show you how I do thumbnails. So in this upcoming course, we are going to be creating our own compositions with florals, and I'm going to be sharing with you all my ideas of how I come up with sketches and thumbnails and work different things into my design. All of that happens inside my mixed media pads, and I have a collection of these. I have 11 by 14 is my favorite size to work in, but I also have smaller ones to take with me on the road, um, because I love doing watercolor in them when I'm traveling without taking this huge massive thing. So, but you can use anything inside of these— markers, pens, watercolor, acrylic paint. They're just absolutely fundamental to your painting journey. So I would highly recommend getting a mixed media pad. And then these are just some of my other ones, but you can see I have them in different sizes. And then to go with your brushes, I can't— I would love to be able to sell this in my store, but we cannot find a resource to do so. So you can get this on Amazon. This is the Master's Brush Cleaner. It's my favorite one out of all the ones I've used over the years. If— but this is one of those things like don't not paint because you don't have this brush cleaner. You can use your hand soap, you can use dish soap. They are going to be harsher on your bristles than this. This is going to condition and protect them, and it does a really, really good job of getting down into the barrel so that it gets all that paint color out. So this is the brush cleaner that I recommend as well. Um, Sheila said, do you always use acrylics for your paintings? I use acrylics and watercolor. I use paint markers, and then I do some mixed media with ink and stencils and papers, but I don't teach oils. So Marcy Ann said, do they warp when they're wet? Not terribly bad. It depends on how heavy you are with your paint. But if you note, like, this is a full painting I did in acrylic in here, and I didn't notice it warping or bending. You can even see now how flat that is. But when it's completely dry, if you notice that it's warped a little, then you would just take— if you decide you want to frame it, you would take that page out and just put it under something heavy again once it's completely dry, um, so that you can flatten it out, but not bad at all. It's meant to hold paint. Um, Sharon said, are the paint markers expensive? I will get to— I will show you some paint markers in just a second. So, um, okay, so that's the mixed media pad. Um, and then again, this is not essential, but the more you paint and the more different styles that you do with me, there are going to be times where you want to trace templates onto your canvas. In order to do that, you may want— and I just recommend having tracing paper anyways in case you see a photo that you want to recreate, you can trace over that photo with tracing paper. And then the black thing that I have in here is carbon paper. So again, you can get both of these through my Amazon store or your local craft store. What else do I have back here? This is my collection of brushes, and then I have lots of paint pens. So you can probably see these little drawers of them back here. Posca is my favorite brand. You can get them on sale sometimes at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, Amazon. I just ordered some, some new ones, and they come in all different sizes. So again, this is an optional thing, but I do use it in my art. So I want to show that to you guys. Um, as far as cost, um, I don't know off the top of my head what a set is, but I want to say they're like $2 to $3 or maybe $2 to $4 a piece depending on the size that you get. And then of course they're going to be cheaper when you buy them like in a pack. Um, so I have some of those up in my Amazon store as well. Um, Jet said, do you use Procreate to create tracers? I use Procreate sometimes, and then I do some by hand, so I do, I do both. Um, Deborah said, are you not supposed to store them standing up? I never have and haven't had a problem with it, so I don't know if that is, um, a necessity, but The way I've stored them has worked for me for these last few years. Sheila said, do you add Posca to your paint? So when you are adding— and you can go back on YouTube and look at some of my past tutorials to see how I incorporate paint pens into my work— but the important thing to remember when you do use paint pens is that you need your painting completely dry before you add paint pens on there. Otherwise it will drag through your paint and ruin the tip of your paint pen, which I have been guilty of doing because I haven't patiently waited for my paint to dry. Speaking of, this is not in Amazon, but you have one or you can go get one at the dollar store. I recommend having a blow dryer at your station. You can see I've got my color mixing pad over here. This is a color mixing guide. It's also in my Amazon store. My blow dryer is back there. Um, because sometimes you just don't want to wait for it to dry. Um, so sometimes I blow dry things to get things moving a little bit faster. Um, so if you missed the shop link, I'll throw that back up. Just text the word shop to that same phone number. So that is the phone— that's the Social Easel text phone number. So text the word shop and text the word Amazon. It's the same phone number, and it will send you both of those different links where you can shop from. Jet said, I just got the color mixing guide, it's amazing. It is, um, color wheel number one I think is the most important thing. You've got to understand the color wheel and how it works. But then once you understand this, uh, and, and you want to get into color mixing, I highly recommend a color mixing guide. So mine is huge, um, just because I wanted a really big one, but they also make them in like a 12 by 12 size. So you don't have to have that big one, but it helps you start understanding what colors you need to mix together to get certain colors. Um, and it's all just a process. These are skills that anyone can learn. You don't have to have any artistic talent, um, to paint with me, to do any of the things that I show you. Everything is step by step with me, and I show you the— not just the steps, but the reason behind, um, why I do what I do. in my artwork. So let me know if you guys have any other questions. The last thing I was going to share, um, obviously you want a water cup. Um, I love to use mugs with different sayings. This was a gift from one of my friends, um, a while back. It said, "Mama tried," with guitars on it. I have some with verses. I just love using mugs and letting paint be all over them and messy. We do have some mugs in the store as well, um, that it's a set. One is to drink your coffee out of and one is for your paint, uh, and your paint water. And one says not paint water and one says paint water. So there's lots of different options you can use for cups. Um, you want to have paper towels. Again, I'm not linking this stuff, this is stuff you can get anywhere. Um, paper towels, because it is very important that you dry your brushes off before switching colors. You don't just want to go into your water and then with it dripping or filled with water go to your next paint color. It's going to dilute your paint down. So paper towels, um, another option to have that a lot of creatives keep at their station is baby wipes as well. And those are great if you do a little oops on your painting. You can grab a baby wipe really quick and clean it up and just also clean up the space around you or your brushes. So those are good to have. And then As far as paint, I use heavy-bodied acrylic sometimes, but for most of the paints that I use for most of my paintings— sorry— is just DecoArt craft acrylic. So just the regular Americana DecoArt. Very, very soon we will be able to introduce to you my own paint kit with DecoArt. So I have partnered with them. The Social Easel is going to have their own paint kit. So as soon as that becomes available, you guys will know about it. So be checking your emails and your texts. But it's all my favorite paint colors from DecoArt. And then when you buy those, you're also going to receive a color mixing guide on how I— you can take those Essential Paint colors that are in my kit and turn them into a plethora of colors that you can use in your paintings without helped buying a million tubes of paint. So, um, I love DecoArt, um, love all these different colors. So that is coming very, very soon. Um, see if I have any other questions over here. Yes, we are very excited, um, to be partnering with DecoArt. They've been, um, a great partner over the last several years for my live event and supplies and, and different things. And, um, now we are finally going to have our own paint kit through DecoArt. So it is just, uh, so exciting, and I can't wait to share it with you guys. So stay tuned on that one. It's coming very, very soon. What else do I have for you guys? I think that's kind of it, um, on supplies. So I hope that that gives you some good information of where to start and what I think some essentials are. Again, I talked about a lot of things, so I don't want you to think you have to have all of them, but it gives you an idea of what I keep in my space. So the second part of what we're going to talk about today is Setting up your space for success. So again, if you have, we have a blog post on studio organization that you can go to on thesocialeasel.com. So be sure to go look that up. If you go to thesocialeasel.com, we have a little search bar at the top of the page and you can put in like studio or organization and it will pull that blog up for you. So great, resources there, but I also just wanted to talk to you about it over video because everyone's working in a different space. And trust me, it has been years of me not having the kind of space that I have now. I have only been in this studio for about a year, and we're still not done getting it finished. Um, but this is obviously a huge, huge blessing, the amount of space I have here, and it's allowing me to do a lot more. But when I started this business over 10 years ago, I was like many of you, and I was just painting at the kitchen table. And, um, we can't all have a designated studio space, and that's okay. Again, don't let that be the reason you don't paint. There are lots of things that you can use to keep your stuff organized, so when you are ready to paint, you can just bring your, your tote bag with you filled with your paint items. I know a lot of women in my tribe use like the three-tiered rolling cart that you can get at a craft store to keep your different paints and supplies on. My advice to you is to make sure that you make things easy for yourself. If you make it hard, you're less likely to set aside that time to go paint. So, um, I just love— now these are all filled with flowers right now because I brought a bunch of these, um, up from the studio. These are all my artificial flowers, but these big tote bags, um, are fantastic if you need to have a mobile space for painting. You can fit everything you need in a large tote. You can fit your paints in there, and maybe you put your paints in something like this. This is perfect for 2-ounce bottles, and you can get a lot of this kind of stuff like at the Dollar Tree, um, so whatever dollar store you have. This is what I have like in my camper when I go travel. I just keep this little tote of all these different colors with me so I can paint on the go too. So I recommend doing this. Just set it inside of your tote. Your brushes, your palette knives can all go in there. Your plates or tear-away palette, whatever kind of palette you choose to use. And you can keep it all in a bag, so when you're done painting, you can clean off your kitchen table, throw it all back in there, and put it back away, and then pull it out when you're ready to paint again. But that way, your basic art supplies are all in one spot to make it easy for you to get started. Um, a lot of people ask me about easels and whether or not you have to have one to paint, and the short answer is no. But I paint sometimes on easels and sometimes I paint flat, so it really comes down to preference and you figuring out what you want. You can get— I have some linked in my Amazon store as well, some standing easels, some tabletop ones. You can go to any craft store and get them too if you do want an easel to paint on. I do feel like painting on an easel, because you're looking at it straight on, does help with perspective a little bit. Because sometimes when we're painting flat, especially on a larger— like if you're painting like, um, 16 by 20 or bigger, I would definitely recommend an easel. Sorry, quick yawn. Um, so, but they're optional. And then I used to always keep disposable tablecloths or a plastic tablecloth to put over my kitchen table so I could be as messy as I wanted to. Um, so, uh, that is— that's what I recommend if you, you don't have a space, um, that you can just leave your stuff up all the time. The other thing for having great success in your space is having good lighting. It's really hard to get your colors to turn out right and for your compositions to turn out right if you don't have good lighting. If you're painting in a really dark area. So I have linked a couple, um, lights in my Amazon store as well. I'm going to throw that back up there because I know a few of you missed it. Um, uh, the lights— people always ask me the lights I use in my space. These are mostly camera holders, and unless you plan on teaching online or taking videos while you're working, you don't really need what I have in the studio. Those are for holding phones tablets, cameras, whatever, and like filming the process. But there are tons of bright lights that you can get, and light just makes such a big difference. So I would recommend getting not like a warm light, but like a very almost like fluorescent white light is ideal for a studio space. Or even more ideal is if you are in a space where you have a lot of natural daylight coming in to set up your art space in front of that window so that you have that awesome natural light. So, um, that is as far as lighting goes in your, your creative space. That's what I recommend for that as well. Um, Michelle said, is it true— and I'm going to throw this up here— she said, is it true that you can make many colors of just the primary, and do you offer a color mixing class? Yes and yes. So all colors on the color wheel, all colors on that color mixing chart back there, are created from the 3 primary colors. Um, so I do have a color mixing class that is available. I don't know if we have it, um, live on the website. It might be, um, like an attached offer to something, so I'll have to double-check on that. But I am doing a short lesson on a free short lesson on color theory, and it's something that I just incorporate into a lot of my teaching. So while I'm teaching tutorials, you can go to my YouTube channel to resource these videos as well. A plethora of them are going to talk about color mixing because I do it for almost every single painting that I do. You would be amazed the colors that you can make from a few simple paint colors. And that's what I really want to teach you guys, is that you don't have to go out and buy every single color of paint you see, or every color that I may have listed on a color list. It's not necessary. Once you have some of those basic colors, you can— like the Essentials Kit that I'm creating with DecoArt— you will be able to create so many new colors from that, and it just really becomes limitless. I'm going to show you just a few. I can't tell if I'm grabbing the right— yeah, mixed media pad or not. So this is just an example of all the different paint colors that I was able to create using the Essentials Kit that I am working on with DecoArt. So when you buy that kit, you will learn how to create some of these different colors as well. So it's so much fun, and it's, it's one of my favorite parts of the creative process is just mixing your own colors. Um, any other questions for me about space, about supplies? The last thing that we're going to talk about today is mindset, and I think this is often overlooked and really needs to be focused on a lot more than what we think, because what we say to ourselves really determines our actions. And, um, self-talk is so important. And whether you say you can or you can't, you're right. So if you believe in yourself and you say, I can do this, you are going to be able to do it. If you tell yourself from the beginning, there's no way I can ever do this, I'm not creative, I wasn't born that way, I don't have I'm not a natural-born artist. All of those are lies. All of those are lies that we have told ourselves. Every single person here on this earth was given creativity. God gave it to all of us because we're created in his image. But not everyone knows how to tap into that. And that's where I come in. That's where I start pulling that out of you. But in order to do that, you have to be in the right mindset. Instead of saying I can't do something, say I can't do it yet, but you can learn those skills to be able to do anything that you want to do. You just have to put the time and the work into it. And that's what I'm really hoping to provide, um, to all of you through my free classes on YouTube and Facebook, um, through my memberships that I offer, and then through this upcoming course that we are going to be bringing to you this spring, um, where you're going to be able to learn how to create your own floral compositions, um, from ideas in your head, from inspiration all around you that we talked about last week. So all of these weeks are building on the things that we're going to be talking about in this upcoming course. But mindset is so important, and you will hear me say it all the time, is trust the process. My other saying that I love too is just embracing the journey. Because be— how do I want to word this? Um, when you sit down to start painting, um, you want to have— again, you want to have the right mindset about that. And if you are just telling yourself the whole time, this isn't going to look as good as the original, or this isn't going to look like Christie's One, it's not supposed to look like mine. It's supposed to look like yours. I'm guiding you and showing you the steps to create your own artwork. And yes, they are my designs, but it's your own piece of artwork that you're creating when you do that. And I want you to start learning to be able to get lost in the process of creating instead of focusing on the outcome. When we focus on the outcome, it steals our joy. Um, when we focus on the outcome, or we focus on looking at other people's art, whether it be if you're in Tribe, whether it be your fellow Tribe sisters or other members, student work that you see me share online, you know, sometimes people will look at that and say, well, I'm just not even going to try because I can't do that. But you don't know. You don't know until you do try. You don't know until you start building the skill upon skill. So just remember that, um, remember to be kind to yourself, remember to give yourself grace that you are learning something new, and remember that it is a process. This is just like anything in life that you want to learn how to do. It's going to take time, and you're going to learn skill sets, and they build on each other. Um, so even though you can't do it now doesn't mean you won't be able to do it in the future. So, um, Keep all that in your head, um, when you sit down to create. Um, I think I missed a few questions over here. Um, yes, if you just go to YouTube and search Social Easel, I will pop up. I'm Social Easel on all platforms: Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Um, Barb said, what do you recommend for canvases? Yeah, canvases are important too, aren't they? Um, So I, I don't think you need to go buy super expensive canvases, okay? Most of my artwork is done on canvases that I've gotten from Michaels or Amazon, the bulk packs where you can get like 5 16x20s, any of their value packs. Those are fantastic canvases. If I know I'm going to create something that I want to be more of a statement piece in my home or in the studio, I will buy more expensive canvas with the thicker edges. They're called gallery wrapped edges, but that necessary, especially when you're just starting out painting. The main thing that you want to pay attention to— and basically they all are, any value pack I've ever seen says that it's pre-gessoed, so there's no need to gesso any of those packs. But that's really the only words that you want to look for when you're buying canvases, is to just to make sure that they're pre-gessoed. Um, Um, Sheila, if you text the word Amazon to this phone number on the screen, it will send you a direct link to my Amazon store where you can find all the different supplies. So I hope that was helpful for you guys today. Um, please let me know if you have any other questions. My team and I will be back in these comments later. So if I can't answer them live, we'll be coming back in the comments to answer your questions, provide links or guidance on, um, where you can find things. And then next week, next Wednesday, join me at the same time, and we are going to be talking about, um, color theory and sharing a little bit more about the upcoming course. So I hope it was helpful. Now get creative, get inspired, start gathering your supplies, make a plan, and tell yourself that you can do this. You can do this, okay? I believe in you. All these women here watching with you believe in you, and this is the best place to learn. You've got a supportive community, and we are all about encouraging you to push past your fear of painting and to start going. And, uh, I say this a lot too: the only thing that can stop fear is action. Because fear just lives in our head, right? And that's not of God. So remember that too. When you start letting fear control your decisions, remember that God told you to not have a spirit of fear. He told you to trust. He told you that he has good plans for you. He told you that he wants the best for you. So when fear starts dominating your mind, you know that's not from God because that's not what he instilled in you. So remember, if you are feeling fearful, um, the best thing you can do is take one step towards that fear to banish it. It will go away. Each step you take, those fears are going to start falling to the wayside and they're not going to affect you anymore. And we're always going to have new things, new obstacles come up in our lives. But the best thing that we can do is trust God and move forward. And whatever that next step is that you need to do, focus on that next step. Don't focus on the outcome. Don't focus on the end goal. Don't try to plan everything out. Do the next step in front of you. So, um, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I will be back next week. Bye!