Okay, FIRST, the many flowers. Way more than ONE attempt today. I tried several different styles, two kind of from tutorials.
Now on to the good stuff. I was so wrong to think my little cheap paintbrushes would hold me for long. AND also wrong to think I had to spend a fortune on a great brush. Check out this super cool brush, the da Vinci CosmoTop Spin #6. (see link) Best spent twelve dollars and thirteen cents EVER. This is a synthetic brush but a DREAM to paint with. (Oh my goodness I will probably SWOON when I use a #6 real sable brush, if I like this so much!) Anyway, it’s clean, smooth, gorgeous, and I swear it paints forever (well, nearly) on one dip of paint. This all may be slight exaggeration because I’m still on painting cloud nine, but really. You’ll like it.
Also I used this set of Daniel Smith paints… they are teensy tubes, but a little goes a long way. (they are 5 ml tubes…figure 2 1/2 ml to load your half pan so you can fill twice, maybe?) I’ve been trying to decide whether I like M Graham paints or Daniel Smith better so wasn’t ready to commit a lot to either… So far, my choice is Daniel Smith, although I love both. This whole set of 6 colors is less than $23 and a great way to decide whether Daniel Smith paints are the way you want to go. (edit: this set went up to $27 as I wrote! Still a bargain imo for a good starter set…) Most of the 5 ml tubes are like $9 a piece, so I feel like getting 6 colors to try for the price of two or three is awesome. And really between these six you can mix nearly anything you want. (seriously, ANYTHING. You get a warm and cool of each primary) But consider (once you know you like them) adding Burnt Sienna (because it mixes with all kinds of stuff, and with ultramarine or phthalo makes lovely grays), Hansa Yellow Deep (‘they’ say this is the truest, most “primary” of yellows. I don’t know if that’s true. But I love it), and Sepia (because I like it, esp mixed with ultramarine) I linked these to the 15ml tubes because it’s only like $3 more for the 15ml sepia vs the 5 ml sepia, and I assume it’s the same for the others. Once you know you like them, get the tube that is three times the size for just a few extra dollars. And now ta-daaa!! A complete palette!! You don’t need those crazy convenience colors. (Okay I MAY invest in cerulean or prussian blue… but those are hardly convenience colors, are they?? And a quinacridone or two, but we can discuss those another day. After I get them)
Go check them out. You know you want to. I won’t tell. Also… check out all my links! It took me two hours to figure these things out, ha!!!
ThreeSixFiveArt 