December is a time when we as artists leave ourselves wide open to well meaning relatives. Our hobby/interest/pastime offers the ideal solution to Auntie Mary's dilemma of what to buy her favorite niece for Christmas. I've lost count of the number of times I've run art courses and there's someone there with an art compendium, that box filled with hard unyielding blocks of colour that refuse to leave the pan no matter how hard it's scrubbed. Pencils that shatter when sharpened, and cheap watercolour paper that would be better served as Scrooge's blotter. The hapless student is always apologetic, "It was a present, I've had it unopened all year, so I felt I must use it". It's tricky enough to learn art without having to contend with inferior materials. As I tell my students,' wear cheap clothes, use the best art materials'. It's also interesting that when it's a 'watercolour exercise' the cheap paper comes out, saving the good stuff for a masterpiece. We also have 'good' and 'rough' sketchbooks. This can often be counterproductive as we attach too much value to the 'good' stuff. Also, the 'cheap' stuff doesn't offer the same learning experience. Some of the best work I've seen often appears on those free giveaways of watercolour paper with all the printing on the back, or on the reverse of a failed painting - I'm sure this phenomena gave birth to the BOGOF!! Upon finishing my course at Frisby-on-the-Wreake, I asked my group if we could clear away promptly as Frisby Fencers wanted the hall after us. "Coo" remarked someone, "I didn't realise you could book on a course to build a five bar gate!" After realising it was the sport of fencing, someone else remarked, " What do you call judges of fencing?....A fencing panel!"