When I started at Automattic I bought myself a mystery bag of art supplies from Erchr as a little gift to myself. It took about three weeks to arrive and when it finally did, I was over the moon! This sketch is yet another wonky one illustrating the pure excitement I felt as I ripped open the package and threw around the bubble wraps to unveil my surprise.

As for work… Well, that’s going okayyyy, maybe 😁. Truthfully, I’m feeling a little out of my depth. I am really enjoying the learning part – the people and the environment are very conducive to that. I just wish I could be helping out more than I’m needing help at the minute. My expertise and experience lies within the world of software development (think RESTful APIs, web apps development, JS/Python libraries and so) and while I have always loved dabbling in operational development (DevOps), I’m certainly not an expert there. So, joining a team that solely oversees DevOps processes is daunting to say the least. I also miss software development a bit. That being said, learning more and diving deep into operating systems, networks, containers, etc, is something I’ve always wanted to get into and now that my bum is on the line, I’m finally getting to it 😅.

Anywayyyy, I want to pivot back to the mystery bag. I do want to share what I received in it.

⚠️ SPOILER ALERT ⚠️

I ordered the “Texture Time” version of the bag and it contained the following items:

• TPS Signature Series Sketchbook (Cold Press)
• A5 Watercolor Block (Cold Press)
• A4 Wood Pulp Watercolor Block (Cold press)
• Watercolor set of 24 half pans

I was a teeny tiny bit sad that I didn’t get any hot press paper. I was really looking forward to trying different textures (which is why I bought the “texture time” bag), but I think the 24 watercolor pan set makes up for that… for now anyway.

I’m really happy that all these items are vegan and they do feel great quality. The tally of the cost of each item is around 162 euros and the bag cost me 115 euros so we do save close to 50 euros which is also great.

I am so stoked about these. I have started trying them out and ooohhh I want to bring them everywhere I go. I’m currently midway through a “scene study” which I started doing on a hot press paper from Hanhemuhle (I hadn’t received the mystery bag when I started it), and I LOVE this paper. I think etchr (or, Fabriano, to be more precise) has some really big shoes to fill.

Anywho, once I finish the scene study, I’ll start playing more with Etchr products and maybe share some here 🤗.

Hasta luego 👋