Perhaps you have never stretched a canvas, ground your own pigments from malachite and lapis, or sanded and primed a board? All before making that first stroke! (I have also made my own ink from candle soot, but never dealt with raising silkworms. One of my friends has.) To make art in any medium requires either what you call donkey work or the purchase of stuff made by others. The more you do yourself, the closer the result to what you hold inside your mind. Carolly