You know something’s difficult to make when such disparate companies as Crayola, Band-Aid, and various shoe makers can’t agree on what it is – let alone to make it right. Nevermind the fact that for, oh, 70-plus percent of humans, the industry standard of “fleshtone” doesn’t even come close.

But you know what? It’s not easy. Well-intended attempts at skin colors come out luridly bright, or weirdly yellow, or just flat and otherwise wrong. Finally, I turned to my favorite art professor, Dr. Internet, and found this site, which is so simple and so helpful. Seriously, bookmark that shit if you think you’ll ever even consider painting a person.

Even with directions, though, I’m never quite sure that an ok batch won’t be my last one. So this time, I stocked up.

Watercolors are so deceptively colored when wet – or when in any state except “dry, in a final version of your painting.” This jar, if you can’t read it, is pale flesh tone skin color.

(Also pictured: my paint-testing paper, several brushes, my bottle of paint-diluting water, my own water glass, the very edge of an ice tray used for mixing paint, my jar of brushes and pens, my sewing machine’s cover, a cupcake wrapper container recently used as a circle template, and my gilded teacup of rinse water. You may address all correspondence to Ms. I.M. Classy.)

Today’s other diversions: doing extremely sketchy thumbnails for Furlough two so I could get a rough pagecount (35!!!), heading to the copy shop to stock up for this weekend, enjoying the new episode of Answer Me This! while also enjoying a chocolate milkshake, eating two delicious veg burgers, and doing zero housework.