It's not just toilet paper that Australians have been hoarding. As coronavirus restrictions took shape, art supplies were suddenly very hard to come by.
There's the obvious factor of more time on our hands for creative pursuits, but perhaps it also reflects an understanding that creativity can help in tough times.
"We are losing a lot of touch at the moment. We're not hugging people, we're not shaking hands," Sydney art teacher Pamela Woods tells ABC RN's Life Matters.
Making stuff can help us get some of that touch back. The outlet could be embroidery, fixing up an old car or making bread from scratch.
Or, as these creative folk prove, it could be something much quirkier.
A tall, small 'hobby on steroids'
University humanities lecturer Tony Chalkley has decided to take his passion for tinkering to the next level.
"It's a bit of a hobby on steroids," he says of the building project he started in March.
He's making a tiny house, which sits by the back door of his Geelong home, between the chook run, some fruit trees and a Hills Hoist.
"[It's] very tall, but very small. Think Howl's Moving Castle meets cubby," Dr Chalkley says.
He chips away at the project for a couple of hours in the morning and the afternoon — a dependable routine that helps him cope with a "bizarre unhinging of time".
"You don't know what day it is. You don't know what time it is, but if it's dark it must be night," he says.
"It's really good for dealing with that, because if you are at a bit of a loose end you go, 'Oh, I'll just go and hang a sheet of something or carve something,' and it is really nice."
He describes the build as a bit of a game; a satisfying challenge.
"It's a puzzle. I've got all these materials that I got from swapping, scavenging, getting from Gumtree, stopping on the side of the road ... I'm trying to make the materials drive the design," he says.
"It's not architectural beauty. It's arts and crafts."
He's utilising his extra time, a shed full of materials and something else: his community.
"That's the other element to it: the barter, swap, exchange," he says.
Social distancing doesn't hamper things. A friend recently left surplus timber on Dr Chalkley's lawn, and in return he left eggs in their letterbox.
"Then we just use a digital thanks and I send a photo. It's lovely that element of making sure you tell people how they've contributed."
Work with what you've got
Mother of four Lexie Abel was already home-schooling her children when Australia began closing its schools because of coronavirus.
She became her friends' go-to for advice, fielding questions like, "What do I do? What do I buy? How do I make sure that we're having fun?"
The former art teacher, from Redcliffe north of Brisbane, came up with an idea that didn't involve spending money or going to a lot of effort: #covidcolourchallenge.
"I just hashtagged it to be silly, as we do these days, and then heaps of people got on board," Ms Abel says.
The challenge involves going on a themed treasure hunt to find anything of a particular colour around your home. Toy box, wardrobe, linen cupboard, pantry and fridge are all fair game.
Her family is loving it — even her dog's in on the game — and the kids have taken over creative direction.
"We did the first one, the green one, and then they flew out of bed the next day telling me what colour we were doing next and they started setting up for it," Ms Abel says.
It's also filling a void that even her already home-schooled children are feeling.
"We're also missing all of our activities and our friends, and getting to go to the library and the museum and all those regular meet-ups that we look forward to weekly," Ms Abel says.
The colour challenge is providing an enriching way of engaging again.
"The kids are FaceTime-ing their friends and showing them what we've been up to, and then their friends go off and give it a go and send us something that they've done," Ms Abel says.
"It's encouraging them to still share with their friends, in a different way."
No paint? No problem
Ms Woods, who runs art classes — now online — through her business Class Bunny, says there is "a watercolour shortage in Sydney now".
"People have gone mad. Just like toilet rolls, people are hoarding watercolours," she says.
Undeterred, she decided to make her own, and is now creating vibrant artworks with the colours of spinach, turmeric and even old dried up markers.
"I'm not going to let it stop me. What's in the outside world can also be found around the house if you look hard enough and be creative," she says.
"It's amazing what you can make and what you can do."
She says blended and strained spinach, wine, instant coffee, squid ink, turmeric, paprika, brown onion skins and roots from the garden can all yield colourful results.
"It's a bit of trial and error," she says.
She's even making watercolours out of old Textas lying around the house.
"You can snap them open, pull out the filament and then drop it into a little bit of water and let it sit for about an hour. Then you've got pretty intense watercolour," Ms Woods says.
"These pigments may not last to get to your grandchildren in 50 years. But in the circumstances we're in — or if you're on a budget — then you can use these pigments to do pretty passable colours."
Plus, Ms Woods says it's not necessarily about what's on the page, but the process of putting it there.
Watercolour painting is "kind of meditative, something you need to sit down and give yourself to," she says.
"You can get lost in the zone when you're painting watercolours. It's mesmerising because the water does what it wants to do so, to a degree, with watercolour you have to go with the flow."
And what better time to get comfortable with a concept like that.
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2020-04-20 22:48:53Z
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