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A new favorite watercolor trio?

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Daniel Smith Quinacridone Lilac

Holbein Marine Blue

Holbein Aureolin

I’ve linked all of the above with the best prices currently on Amazon. (As an Amazon affiliate, if you purchase them through these links instead of searching them, I get a few cents without costing you anything extra. If you aren’t purchasing them soon, however, I suggest you check prices a little, because they do fluctuate)

I was more impressed with each of these, and with the secondary colors they produced, than I expected to be. The blue is really gorgeous. Well, all three are. They are a little more vibrant in person than in this photo.

I’m planning to use these three as my primaries in my current travel set. (Not that I travel much, but there is a local group urban sketching opportunity soon!) The browns were more difficult for me to get, and keep consistent, but I think that was me, not the paints. Once I found them, I liked them quite well. I couldn’t get a good black shade easily, but that also might be me… I did get a gray I liked. In fact, I got a nice purple tinted gray, and a nice blue gray as well. And a sort of ugly-interesting green gray I haven’t decided about.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about Holbein in general, but these two are nice. I found these through Dr. Oto Kano’s channel, specifically this video, listing her favorite 8 colors. (Not necessarily all for the same palette, but her favorite colors overall.) I think I also found my paint storage solution from one of her earlier videos. She used a white board, I used pegboard.

Jay Lee tutorial: painting with bottle tops!

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This is fun and simple… Gather your supplies:

watercolor paper, brush, paint, palette, water, and some random sized bottle tops.

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Dip the top into paint,

then press a tin into the page. Twist it a bit if necessary. Using water on the paintbrush, draw the paint out into the middle of the circle.

Repeat, using different sized lids, and different colors, overlapping some.

It doesn’t need to be great art to be worthwhile. It is enough for it to be relaxing.

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Wacky Wonderful Wedding Weirdness.

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I’m embarrassed by how long since my last entry!! My excuses are

  1. Busy with work
  2. My giant dog has had several dr visits, ending with scheduling TPLO surgery for him for next week. Ugh. Double ugh. Triple ugh.
  3. Threat of Hurricane Florence, including a partial mandatory evacuation in the area (not us, though!) … Flo was a no-show here, thank goodness! 
  4. A larger art project I’ve completed (which I’m about to explain), and
  5. General Laziness. ……Still… it is THREESIXFIVE art. Not, 345, or 351… 3-6-5. Truthfully, though, I have done a little something most days, just haven’t posted it.
    So let’s talk about #4. My niece (-to-be) asked me to make table markers for her wedding reception, with pretty bits in them AND some creepy crawlies, because she met my nephew (-who-already-is) at a session where she was teaching about the little crawlies (or… something cute like that) So instead of table numbers, each table with be named after some little buggy, with a drawing of it in its nymph form. (I know, “nymph” sounds so cute, doesn’t it? But trust me when I say decidedly NO) Still, it’s a cute idea, but it took me a while to get it finished (and started, even) because I was a bit out of my comfort zone and didn’t have a clear vision for the project. Well, they are finished now, so I’ll show you what I came up with. I wish I had done the large letters differently, and I wish I had drawn the bug in ink first, then painted it in, but overall they are cute and different, and hopefully she likes them.

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I’ll wager you’ve never seen wedding table markers anything like this, right??

A few of my favorites, for indiscernible reasons:

I was definitely better at them by the last one, and wish I had a temperament (or perseverance) which would allow me to do them over, start to finish. (Thankfully, I don’t, and there wasn’t time!) I loved painting all these little colored leaves and flowers. I do wish I had added more flowers! The recent Jay Lee youtube tutorials have given me lots of practice.

I think they should inform everyone which table they’ll be at, and see who arrives knowing the most facts about their table crawlie. Love me a good competition!!

Seriously, though, I won’t be able to attend the wedding because of Emmett’s surgery, so I am sincerely happy to have been able to participate in this small way.

playing with phthalo green

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Just doodling tonight, trying to see how many shades of green I can get mixing phthalo green with the other colors in my Schmincke palette. PG7 has been one of my least favorite shades of green, but everyone seems to love it so much. And… look how well it plays with others! (To be honest, I’m starting to kind of like this Schmincke one, even on its own.) I can see why it is a staple on so many palettes.  And probably will become a favorite of mine as well. Definitely in a limited palette, anyway, without the lovely convenience greens I enjoy so much. You can make pretty much any green out of this… bright, muted, deep… Although nothing granulates like Daniel Smith’s green apatite genuine, today phthalo green may have won me over.

 

 

 

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Paint Nite! Acrylic flowers

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Last night I went to a Paint Night event at a local pizza place, Spaghetti Eddie’s. (First… I hadn’t been there for a while, and may I say the pizza was fabulous. Yum.) We all painted our own version of the same flower under the direction of the event coordinator, Makayla.

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Being someone who has trouble coming up with ideas, I’m teaching myself to paint by copying others, and I was surprised by how varied our paintings were. My scope of imagination is narrow when it comes to painting (so far) and it is hard for me to go outside the lines, so to speak. But it wasn’t hard for any of my family! I think these four together on a single wall would make a beautiful grouping!

If you haven’t tried Paint Nite, I recommend it, whether you have ever painted before or not. It isn’t about the finished product, it’s really about enjoying yourself. It’s a fun, relaxing evening.

I decided to hang mine, at least temporarily! I hope they all did. 🙂

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Watercolor Leaves (with Jay Lee)

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During the Jay Lee Watercolor livestream on youtube this morning, first we painted a page full of random pretty leaves, without much detail. These are quite relaxing.

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(A cute little keychain I bought from Jerrys Artarama this summer. KIND of a mini posable drawing figure. Not really very posable. But that’s not his fault, and he likes to watch me paint)

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Then, I think to prove to us that he can, Jay Lee helped us paint a detailed, more realistic fall leaf.

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There has always been something soothing about drawing or painting leaves.

New Foldable Pocket Watercolor Kit

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Click here to see on Amazon… currently $15.99 (I expect them to go up closer to Christmas)  Dyvicl Watercolor Paint Set – 42 Assorted Watercolors Foldable Pocket Travel Watercolor Kit with Brush for Artists, Beginners, Students, Field Sketch Set  

I have been looking forward to writing this review… I tried these paints a few weeks ago, and holy moly, are they ever fun. First, what a unique pan. I had decided if I could find these paints cheaply enough and I hated the paints, I would dispose of them and fill the pans with Daniel Smith colors. But i really like the paint, so far. They are vivid, transparent, and mix well. There is little apparent color shift on the paper as the paint dries.

I don’t know the brand name or manufacturer of the paints, but the set says “Superior” across the top.

There is no lightfast information I can find. I’m going to assume they are not lightfast, until I run my own test (which I’ll do soon, but it takes quite a while to get any results.) Still… 42 colors of quality (feel) paint for under $16, with a waterbrush and mixing palette… what a deal! That all fits easily into a purse or really anywhere. 42 is TOO MANY colors for me, but the smaller sets were only a bit less expensive, and the colors I really wanted were in the larger set. (of course)

I started by creating a swatch sheet that fit in the bottom of the pan. But it was still tricky finding where the paint was. The set fans out, like a deck of cards would in your hand…with 3-9 paints in each strip. The colors at the top, nearest to the hinge, will be harder to use.

The color swatches on the pans themselves were not good… not even close to some of the colors (which is pretty normal, really) so I made my own and covered them with clear packing tape, and glued them over the existing swatches with adhesive dots. Now I can tell exactly where the color I’m looking for is.

It has a top shelf which holds a tiny sponge like piece to be used as a blotter… this piece is velcro’d in place, and can be removed for rinsing. Some of the other brands keep this area empty and it is used as the mixing palette, but a blotter is very useful, particularly if you are taking the paints somewhere outside your studio to use. With this set, the bottom plastic piece has a frame around it so the whole length of the palette can be used to mix paints without worrying about them dripping off. (Also, side note:  I finally realized I can mix straight on my tile topped table as well!)

I love the paints, I love the interesting design, I love the portability… I found a pencil case at Target the set fits in nicely that I can use for storage. I even love the water brush, and I am not currently a big water brush fan.

I used the water brush and paints for both of these:

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(the shimmery glowy bits on the lightning bug’s behind here are not from this set, I painted over this part with my finetec gold)

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Today I followed a Jay Lee livened youtube tutorial and painted this, using my regular brushes and these paints:

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I think this set is great fun as an introductory set for someone, an inexpensive way to discover watercolor painting. Or as an interesting travel set for a more experienced artist.  I’m buying a few more as gifts! Let me know if you try them!