tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84518896337009747712024-03-13T10:47:27.294-07:00Rob's Art Supply Reviewsrobertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-46091796527341183862018-02-14T14:44:00.000-08:002018-02-14T14:45:46.915-08:00Irodori Gambai Japanese watercolors and Kuretake pen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Irodori Gambai Tambi set, six colors plus water brush and Kuretake manga pen</div>
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This set was on sale at Blick in the Winter seasonal catalog. Still is and it sold out a couple of times, got back ordered. I can see why. It's compact and interesting, contains everything I'd need to do good color illustration including an interesting pen.</div>
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The Kuretake Mangaka Flexible pen is water soluble, not waterproof. It's not a brush tip pen like the Pentel Brush Pen that I dearly love, but it has a thick-thin line and a sturdy nib that's pressure sensitive. The line flicks well and does thin on lightening up. I was pleasantly surprised to have a pen with a different effect in my lineup between the Pentel brush pen and my assorted Pigma Microns, one that's expressive without demanding absolute precision.</div>
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The colors are well chosen in the small set, though the full range has 36 or more all with interesting names. They're not as strong as the Daniel Smiths that I'm used to, but they are pan colors and sufficient pickup gives me good dark color, especially with the Dark Blue. </div>
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Naturally I did a test painting using a reference from coldpress on WetCanvas, for a challenge.</div>
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Cherry Blossoms, branch with white flowers on pink and blue haze</div>
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This came out well. I'd originally penciled it to test the Pebeo Masking Marker but there's been some problems with that, I may have to wait to get it until a warmer season. If it's frozen along the way it damages the fluid and the pen's dead before it arrives. That was what happened to last week's review - the product didn't work at all but Blick made good. So I'll order later in spring and see what happens, just get a customer refund on it - but beware, don't order that product during the winter! You don't know how far it'll travel or how cold the delivery truck gets along the way. It would be worth getting it anyway if it works well - but just keeping it indoors in the warm studio instead of taking it out on bad cold days.</div>
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So I reserved white manually instead and that worked well. The colors in the little set are Brown, Dark Blue, Green, Gold, Dark Pink and Lemon Yellow - an excellent palette that can mix anything else I want or work together in glazes for optical mixing. I did some of both and some mixing on the paper. I used the pen to darken the branch but didn't outline the flowers as I preferred them without.</div>
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These colors layer well although they do mix with what's under them. They are a touch more opaque, they're not exactly like Western watercolors but still very good. Not quite in a league with Daniel Smith but they have their own particular charm and would be very good for Asian styles of painting like sumi-e with color.</div>
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The water brush is a little different. Water isn't automatically delivered, it takes squeezing to renew it so the brush dries up to allow dry brush effects pretty easily. I liked that as a variation. Each brush handles differently and this one has a good point, it just takes a little more work to use as I have to remember to squeeze. However that gives much more control of flow!</div>
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Overall, the set is a good value and it was surprisingly small and handy. I put a Tikky mechanical pencil next to it for scale, it's only about 5/8" thick in its green silk box and quite sturdy. I've had those boxes before with sumi-e supplies and they stand up well to travel. I could pocket it as long as I had reasonably large pockets, suitable for tossing in a paperback or a post card sketchbook. So this is a go-along set too. </div>
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I may update this later with some example painting on rice paper, since I've got some. But so far on regular sized paper it performed well and the colors are lovely.</div>
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robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-82256228742106634352018-01-31T11:54:00.000-08:002018-02-07T18:01:49.208-08:00Finetec Artist Pearlescent Colors and Fabriano Black Black paper<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Common Morpho Butterfly painted in Finetec Pearlescent Colors on Fabriano Black Black Mixed Media Paper.</div>
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Wow. Someone's come out with black watercolor paper, for painting in gouache, acrylic and other opaque water media. Don't be fooled by the name. This stuff is 300gsm or about like 140lb watercolor paper, not the usual 90lb mixed media paper. It is a good strong heavy paper that doesn't cockle. There's also a White White pad with the same paper but I didn't buy it, since I have plenty of white watercolor paper and nuances on bright white would not be as important as the first actual black watercolor paper I've got to work with. Fully sized with a nice soft cold press texture, this stuff is gorgeous. It's heavy, sturdy and dark. </div>
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Till now my favorite black paper has been black Stonehenge paper, which is still my favorite colored pencils paper. But when I'm bringing in wet media, Fabriano Black Black is well worth it. It's toothy for use with aquarell pencils. I sketched under my Common Morpho Butterfly with my Caran d'Ache aquarell pencils and got beautiful heavy color. The white helped me lighten a couple of areas and strengthened the white dots under the pearlescent white. </div>
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My next delight was finding out how well those Finetec Pearlescent Colors work on black. They are good and bright! Add enough and they're opaque. They're actually pretty easily opaque, a touch more opaque than the Daniel Smith Luminescent watercolors that are my other favorites. They're in pan form rather than tubes and individual colors can be ordered if all you need is a good gold for decorating a medieval scroll or something. </div>
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SCA scribes, this is very convenient gold or silver in a pan to tuck into your scribe kit for illumination. There's also a six color set that's hues of gold, copper and silver which can work well for scribes, but if all you need is one gold, look for Olympic Gold, I think that's the one that's the closest match to shell gold - the real gold dot that's powdered gold in gum arabic. </div>
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The six color Iridescent Set looks to be what Daniel Smith labels Interference Colors - pale with a soft hint of color that changes to its complement when tilted. These are using simila pigments - mica treated and ground to produce shimmering iridescent color. The effects are spectacular. Mystic Color in the 12 Color Pearlescent Set is also an interference color, bouncing between a red and a blue green. It's beautiful and dark, unlike the other interference colors. It's very handy for when I want that effect in lower value areas.</div>
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Finetec are artist's mica pigment colors. They're lightfast and high quality, artist grade, I'd have no trouble selling paintings done with them whether that's in combination with other water mediums or by themselves. The form is actually even handier for me because I dislike carrying tubes around but do like painting with friends and some things like an iridescent effect - the Mystic color would be particularly effective on the necks of grackles and pigeons.</div>
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Opaque colors can be thinned to light washes just by adding more water. They work very well painted over similar flat hues for a subtle effect. I've often used a thin glaze of blue or aqua over a reef scene and found the iridescence vanishes - thin enough it doesn't really change the hue of non-blue objects like fish or corals, but does give a richness to the water and sense of luminous water that wasn't there without it. Mica paints aren't just for glitz and glitter. </div>
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But they are fun for that too. Any holiday cards or other projects you want to jazz up with shimmering iridescence will benefit from Finetec Pearlescent Colors and Iridescent Colors. Those can be very good on snow scenes in a thin glaze over the entire snow area, since snow has that kind of effect too. Mix a little in with the shadow colors or use it to create slight tints for atmospheric recession - bluish cast in the distance, rosy in the mid values shading up through to thinnest gold or yellow. </div>
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Price is reasonable for artist grade materials, but not in the bargain range for the Finetec colors. They are available at many outlets online including Dick Blick and some of the calligraphy and pens places, because they are so good for embellishing. A friend picked one up from a brick and mortar store too, they're not hard to find. Definitely give them a try. Blick has them in open stock if you want to try just one color first or all you need is scribal gold. That open stock is also convenient since the tin for the 12 color pans may wind up wearing down unevenly, depending on your style and favorite colors. Some colors run out faster than others by area of the painting. </div>
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There is a very nice, subtle iridescent black in the 12 colors set too. It's deep dark, it will vanish on black paper to anything but close inspection.</div>
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Fabriano Black Black and White White paper comes in two pad sizes, 8" square and 9 1/2" x 12 3/4" - good convenient sizes. I don't know if it's available in full sheets since I got the larger pad, but it's great stuff and I know I'll use it often. Of course you can also combine these things with a brush or dip pen to do gold and colorful calligraphy on black paper too, to make striking cards!<br />
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EDIT: Note to Readers - the entry for the 7th was going to be the Pebeo Masking Marker, which I was all excited about getting. It arrived yesterday. The project is set up to paint with it. Unfortunately, what I found out is that if it got frozen along the way it becomes useless. Blick is replacing it, so hopefully I'll be able to review a working one next week!</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-10142185520273675162018-01-24T10:28:00.000-08:002018-01-24T10:28:47.842-08:00Portable Painter Watercolor Palette and Tikky Mechanical Pencil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Portable Painter Watercolor Palette</div>
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(colors shown are not included, they are Winsor & Newton half pans)</div>
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I read quite a few reviews on this palette before buying it. The idea looked simple enough and was interesting. But I didn't know that I really needed it until one reviewer mentioned it fits Winsor & Newton half pans perfectly. </div>
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This tipped the balance. I had a 12 color Winsor & Newton Artists' Field Box that I loved to pieces - literally, the hinge broke on the poor thing and it's no longer so portable as it was. I needed to have something else to put those 12 lovely artist grade colors in, so I finally got the Portable Painter palette. By comparison, there's one thing this one doesn't have - the water bottle that was included in the Field Box, or any place to put the small sponge. </div>
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However, the size 4 travel brush is generous sized compared to most of these pocket brushes and big enough for comfortable journaling, unlike the very tiny detail brush from the W/N Field Box. That made up for a lot. </div>
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I also had some doubts about whether it'd fit over my leg. Was this designed only for slender people? Not to worry, despite overdeveloped legs due to skeletal crookedness, it fit comfortably over my thigh and it wasn't hard finding a good spot where it stayed balanced. The water dishes on the side are deep enough that it really doesn't tilt when it's on my lap like that. </div>
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white cosmos painting 3" x 5"</div>
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watercolor and some iridescent watercolor glaze on the white petals</div>
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Painting with it became interesting. Keeping my leg steady was something I hadn't expected to need to worry about but there it was - I couldn't really move that leg or fidget as much as usual. This will take some work getting used to it. But that did leave both hands free, one to hold the journal and the other to hold the brush. The advantage is a good one, I just need to make sure I've got a chair that's at a good height for me. </div>
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Like any change in habits, it also took a bit of a mental shift to get used to the water being down there on my leg instead of up near my work. Having two deep water cups was great though. I was able to reach in easily and rinse the brush thoroughly between colors.</div>
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Assembling it is easy. The cups slide on pegs at the sides and stay put once assembled, the whole thing doesn't rock and it is also stable if set on a table. It came with empty half pans in it that had fairly thin sides but would be good if I wanted to switch out these Winsor & Newtons for tube watercolors of any kind. I kept those aside in a box in case I do want to switch. </div>
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I've heard that some brands' half pans don't fit well because manufacturers vary slightly in their dimensions and size, but Winsor & Newton ones do fit well. So save those once they're used up, they can always be refilled after they're completely empty.</div>
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The aluminum clip that holds the two water cups together as the case might be easy to mislay. Keep track of that or rubber band it to one of the water cups while it's in use. It does come with a big fat rubber band as well. </div>
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Overall I like it. If I brought along a bottle of drinking water on an outing, that'd be enough to fill the water cups and they are big, there's no need to get frugal with how much water I use. Big washes are easy and so is keeping one of them as clean water to mix into pans instead of wash water. I'd recommend keeping it in a travel sketching kit, so the aluminum clip can go into the bag while you're working and a rag or paper napkin to wipe out the water cups after use is handy. </div>
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It's a good product. Definitely does keep my hands free, the size is convenient and the brush included is good quality. I had no problem getting either fine details or fairly loose washes with that brush. </div>
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Six Tikky mechanical pencils, violet, light blue, light green, yellow, orange, pink.</div>
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<b>Tikky Mechanical Pencil</b></div>
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I bought this last fall, it was in Blick's Fall catalog and intrigued me. I'd been looking for a good mechanical pencil for undersketching. Not so much for serious pencil drawing, for that I prefer lead holders and broader leads. More for the type of under drawing that I'd either use a cheap mechanical pencil or a No. 2 pencil on it - something that would not need sharpening, would not run out of short leads as the disposable cheap ones do, and feel nice in my hand. </div>
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This comes in six bright colors but the design doesn't look too "cute" or anything, just artistic. The black grips set off the fluorescent barrels well. I'm always a sucker for the spectrum, so recently I bought all the other colors of it too. My first was a light blue and I wound up carrying that thing with me everywhere. If I misplaced it I'd get annoyed and tear up all my stuff till I found it again. It has a good weight in the hand and synthetic HB leads that are very fine - and don't need sharpening. Exactly what I bought it for, replaceable very fine HB leads that felt good in the hand.</div>
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Everyone's hand is different. What pencil gives you the best results for what task may vary a lot. My granddaughter likes wooden No. 2 pencils and sharpens them with a knife because she does serious pencil drawing with them and likes to control the point shape with her knife. These Tikky pencils are a little heavy compared to the cheap mechanical pencils and that affects the angle I hold them, my hand fatigue - a big thing for anyone with fibromyalgia or carpal tunnel or any hand problems, everything. They are the best mechanical pencil for clean fine lines to paint over that I've used at all.</div>
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I have no examples of drawings with them because every time I use them, I go over it with pen or watercolor or both and erase the pencil lines. Happily these synthetic leads erase easily. That was another factor in itself. I bought it on impulse but kept using it so often that I stopped using any other HB pencils for underdrawing. </div>
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Jaguar in Winsor & Newton Artist's Watercolor</div>
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painted with Portable Painter Palette over Tikky mechanical pencil underdrawing</div>
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I painted this jaguar for an art challenge at <a href="http://wetcanvas.com/">WetCanvas.com</a> in the Animals & Wildlife forum using the Portable Painter Palette and one of my Tikky mechanical pencils for the underdrawing. It erased clean but I was able to get great detail with it, could just as easily have been for pen drawing or anything else. There is a difference between leads that's subtle - the Tikky smears a little less and erases clean, as opposed to scraping the paper or staining it with graphite. </div>
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I recommend these wholeheartedly. Try one. If it gets as addictive as it did for me, get a bunch of them and make sure there's one in every pocket kit. That's eventually what I did, just to stop worrying about where I last left it! Price is five dollars and change at Blick.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-90718071786097904822018-01-17T08:05:00.000-08:002018-01-17T13:03:36.926-08:00Sennelier pan watercolors, 8 color pocket set<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sennelier mini 8 color watercolor set and small journal with painting of mossy bark.</div>
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I collect pocket watercolor sets. I enjoy them and I like having one on me whenever I leave the house, along with my beloved pocket Moleskine Watercolor journal or some other small journal or pad I can paint in. There comes a point where I felt as if I'd overdone it on these and didn't need another one, so I put off buying this one no matter how tempting its size and colors were.</div>
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After all, with a Winsor & Newton Artist's Field Box would I ever use a different artist grade pocket watercolor set? That one lived on me, just as its Cotman predecessor did for 30 years. Yet this was alluring, with its tiny pocket brush and intriguing palette. Plus that clear window to see the colors. I didn't stop to think "that means my mixing area is clear." That sort of presentation is tempting and makes me want to paint.</div>
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Which is not a bad thing to find in a pocket set. It encourages me to use it with that clear window. Sennelier is a great manufacturer, been around for a really long time, provided supplies to all sorts of famous artists for generations. So their watercolor has to be good, right?</div>
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Well, yes it is! It's artist grade watercolor, very pigment rich, dissolves easily, lovely texture and the pans are just as you could want them. The set is compact with only 8 colors - and the palette is the 8 colors I would have chosen. A good clean yellow, a bright red that can mix to get a decent violet, a light blue suitable for skies, a deep blue that goes near black, two greens, a warm dark and a cold dark. Best of all, the cold dark is Payne's Gray rather than black. I think that's what decided me. I can't count the number of times in 12 color sets where I've replaced black with Payne's Gray. </div>
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Greens and a sky blue are convenience colors especially for outdoor painting. Those two dark neutrals can be mixed to do all sorts of on the go sketching and it's much easier to mix muted greens when starting from a bright one than from various yellows and blues. No matter how traditional or classical it is to use mixed secondaries, in outdoor sketching it's much easier to modify the hue you want to the exact hue you want. There are few bright orange or purple things in nature but lots and lots of greens, even in cities. There's lawns. There's trees. There's foliage in gardens. It all does work well and I did get very good mixed purples when I wanted them.<br />
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White Cosmos flower on dark multicolor blurred background</div>
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I painted this white Cosmos flower with the Sennelier pan watercolors 8 color set as an experiment. The flower's been glazed over with another product that I'll review soon, Finetec Pearlescent Colors, but I posted the example to show how dark I can get a loose multicolored background just using the eight colors in the pocket set. The soft violets in there involve French Vermilion red and the deep blue, French Ultramarine Blue. I used both Pthalo Green Light and Sap Green into the Payne's Grey as well, to get a lot of different combinations. </div>
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The watercolors are pigment rich and strong. Deep colors go nearly to black very easily and the bright Primary Yellow went on very strong as well. I mixed a nice maroon for the tiny pollen spikes with French Vermilion, Burnt Umber and Payne's Grey as well, going over the FineTec colors.</div>
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French Vermilion was a bit of a surprise since I thought it would lean too much toward yellow to mix a clean violet, but it mixes beautifully with French Ultramarine about the way Daniel Smith Quinacridone Coral does. It's a good choice for a single red in a small set. </div>
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I did a lot of blotting and lifting and deliberate backruns with this, while the paint performed as well as Winsor & Newton or Daniel Smith, any of my favorites. There's a reason this little 8 color set has become so handy and convenient. It's just right for most things I'd want to do on that scale, whether I'm indoors or off on an outing.</div>
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The little round brush they included works out well. It has a lovely point, which is the main thing I want in a round brush, especially a small round brush. This one is good enough that I could have repeated my calligraphy stunt, creating an 11" x 14" scroll with fancy lettering using only the pocket watercolor set and its brush. It is a good equivalent to the brushes in either of my Winsor Newton Field Box sets, a little larger than those actually. This makes it a good one for general use in a small journal.</div>
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Though I bought this on a whim, it keeps getting into my pocket more often than I expect to use it. Or sits around on my desk and inspires small sketches just because it looks inviting. Don't knock that in an art supply, if something about it makes you feel like going back again and again to paint, it may seriously improve your productivity. With that, up go your skills on more serious painting. Nothing improves so much as constant practice.</div>
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This fun, engaging little set is well worth the cost. If you haven't already picked up any pocket watercolor set for urban sketching, seriously consider it. The quality's excellent, the palette is perfect with its Payne's Grey inclusion and enough blues and greens for most outdoor subjects. Inevitably in outdoor painting, blues and greens get used up fast and reds and yellows last and last, probably due to how much space they take up on the page. But this proportion will wear down more evenly, I think. The insert is one piece but could easily be refilled with tube watercolors.</div>
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Overall, I like it and it became an unexpected favorite. Sennelier pan watercolors are great. Once again I've come to trust that brand.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-90389722493125088582018-01-10T09:24:00.000-08:002018-01-10T09:26:04.452-08:00Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft Watersoluble Colored Pencils<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I0xhwm95VmE/WlZDBtwq58I/AAAAAAAAKqI/vNNX_4kk9Q8sLmqAvap64W2j0HLpYI1IQCLcBGAs/s1600/1-6-2018%2BSupracolor%2BSoft%2BClosed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I0xhwm95VmE/WlZDBtwq58I/AAAAAAAAKqI/vNNX_4kk9Q8sLmqAvap64W2j0HLpYI1IQCLcBGAs/s320/1-6-2018%2BSupracolor%2BSoft%2BClosed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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30 color tin of Caran d'Ache Supracolor Soft watercolor pencils.</div>
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I love these watercolor pencils. I've loved them ever since I got a handful of random colored pencils from a friend that included the stub of a red one. The core is soft, like Prismacolor Premier or Derwent Coloursoft - extremely soft and opaque, a lovely texture for dry work as colored pencils. They dissolve fast and easily, much like Derwent Watercolour or Prismacolor Watercolor. They are much more expensive, running to the high end for watercolor pencils. But then, this is Caran d'Ache. I've come to expect insanely high quality and a price range up at the top. You get what you pay for. I finally got these in a set that's a good size for travel and outdoor sketching.</div>
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30 color hinged tin open, showing all 30 pencils in spectrum order. </div>
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The nice thing is that the way they've done the colors, I could have settled for a 12 color set and been assured of a good range to render anything I came across. I just wanted the convenience colors this set includes, the choice of grays and greens and violets helps me a lot. </div>
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The tin is a nice tin. It's hinged, none of this tin lid skittering across the table under a kitten problem. It's a little more convenient and the styrene tray in the tin fits well. That used to be a problem in some tins when pencils would jump out of their tray to bang together and get internal breakage. The tin's well made and will work well for permanent storage. I tend to put a bit of tape on tin lids if I'm going to put them vertically into a portfolio or bag, because if they fall open it's annoying having to fish all the pencils out of the bottom. Not to mention they get internal breakage banging into things.</div>
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I did not sacrifice a pencil to testing for proneness to internal breakage. I'm not quite that dedicated and these are lovely pencils. Instead, I trust that anything as soft as Prismacolors is going to be at risk if not handled gently and treat them accordingly. I've got my set in a Niji pencil roll now for portability and usually use those or Global Classic pencil cases for colored pencils - anything with an elastic band holder is the safest thing for expensive artist grade colored pencils and watersolubles.</div>
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Once I got these pencils into my eager hands, I couldn't resist trying them. I wanted to see how well they'd handle on watercolor paper. So, out with my Pocket Moleskine Watercolor Journal...</div>
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Purple violas with gold-orange centers on blue-green foliage painted in watercolor pencil.</div>
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The first thing I painted was a bright, high saturation group of three purple violas on very bright green foliage. All of the greens in the 30 color set are strong and saturated, proceeding from a deep blue-green to a very light yellow green. This is great, if I'd wanted to mute them it would've been easy to glaze over with orange or brown or red. I prefer strong mixing colors to the lack of intense saturated colors when I need something saturated. </div>
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They are intense. Color doesn't shift much at all between wet and dry, unlike Derwent Inktense and some other watercolor pencils. It stays intense and powerful. The wash is strong, a little goes a long way and color can easily be pulled out of heavy applications to spread into lighter ones. They handle beautifully. Laydown is easy and they feel responsive in my hand. </div>
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It was a little startling getting used to the narrow hexagonal shape, since so many good artist grade colored pencils are oversize or round. The hex shape felt like using a 2B but the softness is more like a 6B regardless of color. Once I was using them, that translated to speed of coverage. </div>
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Horse with gold body, dark brown mane and tail, wearing a halter. Drawn and washed.</div>
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There's a sketch and wash life drawing of a horse I did while I was out. They were very responsive for sketching, soft and smudgy. It was easy to correct the sketch with a kneaded eraser too and work back into it for texture. I deliberately kept the wash light to keep some linear elements in the final version, but it works well to get all the marks out as I did in some areas on Violas.</div>
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Pine Cone and Gum Ball sketched with Supracolor Soft</div>
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The sketch and wash style is a little easier to see in my journal page with the pine cone and gum ball. There I used more of the neutral colors and only lightly went into them with brighter colors on the pine cone. It worked well. I got beautiful nuances of color and value and managed in some areas to wash out all of the line elements, then restore them as strokes of the brush. I went for a much heavier application on that and layered more.</div>
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Crumbling castle in a weedy countryside under cloudy blue sky, effect is more watercolor.</div>
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In my last sample, I went for more transparent effects and moved color around more. I used color on the brush to create little patches and glazes, dark streaks and edges in this and that. I wanted to see how close I could come to traditional watercolor with it and that worked out very well. Some marks remain for texture but most of them are washed out. The shifting colors on the tower itself were created in layers of very light dry applications and then washed together.</div>
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They do rewet easily. In the castle painting I lightened several areas by lifting and moved color from one patch to another. I worked over the road shadows a lot, shoving color around and lightening it. They are very, very workable. Opposite of the Derwent Inktense that will dry waterproof if completely dissolved. This makes these a good choice for scribbling patches in a journal cover to add color to sketches too. That's a useful trick when you want minimal kit but like having color available.<br />
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The full range is 120 colors and I do plan to get the full range set eventually when I've got studio space. That's one that should be spread out in the studio and used often. The palette in the smaller sets is well designed for mixing though, it's got warm and cool primaries and strong mixing secondaries. The white is reasonably opaque, about like Chinese White watercolor.</div>
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Overall, these are high performance, very pigment rich and soft watercolor pencils. They're worth the money. Watch for sales or coupons, check prices at different outlets, snap them up if you see them at a good price. Like the rest of my Caran d'Ache products, they're extremely high quality and have become favorites already. I trust them to be more lightfast than the Prismacolor Watercolor.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-31609895718091997322018-01-03T14:25:00.000-08:002018-01-03T14:25:35.859-08:00Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Paper<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q27vukc-iq0/Wk1SOrfW4CI/AAAAAAAAKpQ/cSogccFBnrsKsD1-tCMomBOPdPs_hSfsQCLcBGAs/s1600/1-3-2018%2BStrathmore%2B400%2Bpads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q27vukc-iq0/Wk1SOrfW4CI/AAAAAAAAKpQ/cSogccFBnrsKsD1-tCMomBOPdPs_hSfsQCLcBGAs/s320/1-3-2018%2BStrathmore%2B400%2Bpads.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Toned Pads</div>
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I got these back in October out of curiosity - toned mixed media paper? I might be able to have fun with gouache or white media on that. I like working on mid value paper. The weight attracted me - the paper in these pads is anything but flimsy. It's 140lb, my usual weight for watercolor paper. Therefore it might not curl as much under heavy washes. </div>
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I liked the hues of the paper. The gray is just a touch cool, the tan is muted and a lot like kraft paper or the wonderful Brown Paper Grocery Bag that would be great if it wasn't something that would disintegrate in a relatively short time. It's a good color. Light colored elements stand out great, the value is just right to go both directions with Conte or anything else.</div>
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So naturally I tried it with water media. Mixed water media. Pens and wash and gouache.</div>
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Twisty Kitty 6" x 8" gouache, ink and watercolor</div>
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I was pleasantly surprised by the texture. It felt smooth, allowed me to get very fine pen details without fuzzing the line or breaking it. I used opaque and transparent watercolor, did pen work over that and had no problem. With the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, paper texture matters - it's very pressure dependent and the fine tip goes extremely fine if handled right. This paper was smooth enough I could control it perfectly. I got lighter washes of white, wasn't limited to "white" or "bare" for values. </div>
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The paper is very stiff even for 140lb watercolor paper. This proved to be a very good thing when it came to those background washes. Despite its being a pad, I didn't see any cockling at all. That rocks. I hate dealing with cockling and the way it moves color around.</div>
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The smoothness is convenient for pen work, but that can be a problem with colored pencils or pastels if the color won't lay down heavily or won't stick. I thought a mixed media paper should stand up to anything I wanted to put on it. Here's another wet-media example:</div>
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Sekhmet, cat portrait long hair tortie, watercolor and pen</div>
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It's easier to see the effect of the smooth paper on Sekhmet because she has so many swooping strokes with pointed ends, very fine lines with the black Pentel pen. This one also features whiskers done with a white gel pen and some gouache highlights including a gouache glaze over dark and black areas. The paper performed great. </div>
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Sketches in colored pencil on gray, a rock, a leaf and a pear</div>
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The first thing I tried were some sketches with oil based colored pencils. The smooth surface was toothy enough to get good saturation. I was able to build up plenty of color, the bright colors on the pear didn't mute so much that they weren't intense. So I knew it'd handle colored pencils well enough. The oil based ones I used were comparable to wax ones for translucence, though I would expect Coloursoft to shine more than Lyra Rembrandt any colored pencils would work well enough on it. The paper was surprisingly toothy.</div>
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But was it toothy enough for pastels?</div>
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Doe in the Snow, pastel pencil on toned Strathmore 400 mixed media paper.</div>
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Photo reference used with permission from DAK723 on WetCanvas.com.</div>
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I loved how the paper performed with pastel pencils. It felt like working on the smooth side of Canson Mi-Tientes. I knew I could easily go to softer pastels or use Pan Pastels on it with no problem. This mixed media paper lives up to its name. It's tough, it stood up to a lot of erasing, lifting, washing, correcting and changing in a couple of those cat pieces. It's smooth and heavy, allowing fine detail or rough heavy applications.</div>
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I wouldn't worry about putting texture paste or gesso or primers on areas of it either if I were doing something multi-media. The price is decent and the paper is versatile. It's everything I wanted for mixed media. </div>
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Many of the mixed media pads and sketchbooks I've had only had 90lb paper, sometimes with enough texture elements that clean hard inked lines or hard edges were difficult. This paper is great. What's interesting is that while it's buffered and acid free, it has 30% post consumer fiber. So I've finally got a good quality recycled paper that's got the look of brown grocery bags and the feel of brown grocery bags... and the sturdiness of heavy watercolor paper. Good stuff. I'll definitely keep this in stock, there's way too many good uses for it.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-86211175145434457352017-12-27T09:26:00.003-08:002018-02-03T10:10:14.942-08:00Pentel Arts Color Brush Set with Aquash water brush<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-09dqSUsjdFk/WkPUhnwCxtI/AAAAAAAAKow/KBfX0xBBmKoouhmdwpXnvtUK2QC8ZQ7LgCLcBGAs/s1600/12-27-2017%2BPentel%2BColor%2BBrush%2BSet%2BProduct%2BPhoto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-09dqSUsjdFk/WkPUhnwCxtI/AAAAAAAAKow/KBfX0xBBmKoouhmdwpXnvtUK2QC8ZQ7LgCLcBGAs/s320/12-27-2017%2BPentel%2BColor%2BBrush%2BSet%2BProduct%2BPhoto.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Product photo Pentel Arts Color Brush Set in box</div>
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I tossed this into my last Blick order on a whim. I had meant to try the Pentel Aquash water brush and see how it stands up to Niji, Sakura and other favorites. It's included in this sketch pens set - so I thought, well, let's see how convenience works. A black, sepia and gray sketch brush prefilled would be handy for sketching.</div>
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Wow. I didn't realize how good the Pentel Arts brush would be or how great a point it'd have. The color pens come with cartridges, when they're used up you can get black refills. The gray and sepia only come in sets. Still the set was moderately priced at under $18 at Blick, so it's not that bad for a water brush and three pens. Comparable to other water brushes, certainly.</div>
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The color pens unscrew clockwise and screw back on counter-clockwise. This was the case with some water brushes I've had in the past. The Aquash works in the other direction. Get used to it, these things aren't going to be standard in screwing and unscrewing. It's fairly easy to tell if you get it wrong. They come with a little plastic protective collar to keep the cartridge from fully engaging till you unpack it and remove that, which probably keeps the points from getting gunked up before you even use it. I liked that.</div>
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The brushes on the color pens are actual brushes with hairs, like a proper water brush. They aren't fiber tip brush tips like the Pitt Pen Big Brush or the Tombow Dual Tip brush tips. They hold a lovely fine point. I got wonderful expressive details with them and did a little lettering on another practice sheet that came out well. </div>
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But their real joy came in the painting!</div>
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Painting done with product: shaggy dark goat on a hollow log in a dramatic pose as if it just knocked another goat down.</div>
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I had a good photo reference and thought, let's see how these do for illustration. Wow wow wow. Beautiful points. Beautiful expressive strokes. They are very juicy. Before I added the black strokes I had some interesting effects when the gray puddled and lightened in some areas. It handles like watercolor or thin ink, and the pens are good and juicy. I got dry-brush effects sometimes though.<br />
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When the brush starts giving dry brush effects, a squeeze on the handle will give more ink. They handle a lot like other water brushes that way. Except that three of these are loaded with color and it's good color. The gray is light enough to stand a second layer to deepen it for another tone, without going to black. So light-dark effects either wet in wet or wet over dry are easy once I got the feel for it.<br />
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A black cat painting shows how I got the gray to handle values:<br />
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Graveyard Watch, black cat on light tombstone against dark forest</div>
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The highlight on the cat's belly was achieved with a second layer on the cat's body, wet over damp. It wasn't completely dry so came up slightly soft edged, while I got deeper darks next to the stark blacks that I put in with the Pentel Pocket Brush pen. The combination of waterproof Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and Pentel Arts Color Brush watersoluble brushes gave me great flexibility in this piece. I got the deepest darks in first and washed over them confidently without breaking any crisp edges, then toned with the gray Pentel Arts Color Brush.</div>
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It's very delicate and the ink dries semi-washable. It's not fully dissolved when I run water over it - when it's dried, as the lines were in the brown part of the sawn hollow log, running water over them created only a very light wash. This can be really handy for sketching. Do loose strokes very close together and it will start acting like a wash, color flowing in the direction the paper's slanted. </div>
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They are extremely expressive. How they feel in the hand is a delight. They invite expressive strokes and experimental techniques. I rate these pens five star. They don't have the flat effect that the Tombow ones do, because the color does run lighter or darker depending on moisture. This makes them much more like sumi-e painting (Japanese ink painting) and allows for some gorgeous effects. </div>
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I loosened up using them, but still got as much detail as I wanted in tight areas like the animal's eye or the contour of the ear. </div>
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The brush on the Aquash water brush is excellent, with good flow and a lovely point. I'm sure this will become one of my favorites. Slightly sharper point than the Niji and I like the way the ginger-jar handle shape keeps it from rolling off the desk. It's compact and handy. The one included is a size Medium but they also come in large, small and I think there's also a flat one. Similar to other water brush products in pricing, the handle doesn't have the flow regulator in it so filling is very fast and easy - the regulator's up in the tip.</div>
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Urban sketchers should really love these. Throw them into your kit and see what comes out in your journal!</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-32887160448159344172017-12-20T07:49:00.002-08:002018-01-05T08:37:05.184-08:00Conklin "Merlot" Fountain Pen and Monteverde Ink<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today's review is a little different, because I bought these products at <a href="http://www.gouletpens.com/" target="_blank">Goulet Pens</a> online. I subscribed to their newsletter ages ago because I used to own a beautiful Mont Blanc fountain pen with a gold nib in the 1980s. A very large person sat on it and broke it, I think I still have the pieces somewher. I loved that pen. I actually used it for sketching and drawing. To my delight, so do many of my friends who are urban sketchers or pen and ink artists.<br />
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They carry a fun range of products for calligraphy, drawing and writing. Colored inks, many different brands of fountain pens in price ranges from (sometimes) under $10 on sale on up through over $1,000. It's pot luck what gets featured in the newsletter. This time their holiday sale item coincided with my holiday budget and was just too great a bargain - a $65 pen for $35 with a free bottle of ink on top of that! So after getting the kids' presents and grownups' presents, I treated myself to the first time an affordable pen came up in one of my favorite colors. Usually the less expensive ones are clear or pink or lime green or something, not really my style of Old Male Author style, tweed jacket and all. (Yes, my daughter got me a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. I'll model it sometime. Like next time I publish a novel.)<br />
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But this was irresistible. "Merlot" is a beautiful cool red, very purplish, a lot like Quinacridone Red or Violet. It shimmers with little iridescent flakes of lighter and darker reflection. It has a sober black cap and silver trim. Good and fat in my hand, it feels like the old Mont Blanc one did (it was black with gold trim). Definitely a "turn back the clock" type of pen suitable for writing, drawing or signing autographs on published books.<br />
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Edit: This is the Conklin Duragraph "Merlot" color. It was limited edition and has sold out but I think they have other Conklin Duragraph pens in other colors. Just checked and they do, including forest green and purple nights, amber, cracked ice - lots of good colors. Merlot is sold out but there are other great colors.<br />
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To my happy surprise the free bottle of Monteverde ink wasn't a tiny litlte couple of milliliter sample bottle at all, but a big solid old fashioned glass ink bottle suitable for use as an old fashioned inkwell long after I've used it up. Wide at the base, so cats don't flip it over easily. It takes effort for a cat to spill this ink, none of them have succeeded yet. Otherwise I'd have photos of little blue footprints to add to this review. The ink is waterproof, a lovely shade of blue closer to Ultramarine than Pthalo Green Shade but a little closer to center spectrum blue than French Ultramarine. That doesn't always come through in the photos but in person it's a gorgeous blue. Perfect for monochrome drawing. I've always loved blue monochrome sketches and ink-wash painting.<br />
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They were out of the Fine point and I didn't want to wait to have them back order it, so I got a Medium point. I've been used to broader nib pens for some time anyway and thought Medium was good enough, it'd make me sketch a little larger and looser. Much to my happy surprise, the Medium nib was pretty fine - more comparable to an 05 Pigma Micron than to a bullet nib or something. Memories of broad-nib pens were distorted. I do also have some Sheaffer chisel nib cartridge pens, cheap and serviceable calligraphy tools that I used much more before I got dip pens for that.<br />
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It came in a beautiful presentation box with a blue cartridge, a black cartridge and a piston fill converter that let me use the free bottled ink. Great gift package. Sat there nestled in white satin like a sort of artistic vampire, tempting me to let out my inner creativity in notes and sketches and novel ideas scribbled on illustrations that gave me starting points... so of course I tested it by drawing!<br />
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Sissy the Fluff Girl cat drawn in blue ink with Conklin Merlot fountain pen</div>
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The long hair color point cat is laying slightly curled on her side looking to the left.</div>
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She has some text around her including title, date and materials used.</div>
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The nib was a little more stiff than the $150 in 1980s Mont Blanc pen, but that's only to be expected. I got used to it pretty fast. It skipped a little at first till I got the feel of it. Fiber tip pens are a little more responsive to pressure, fountain pen nibs vary a bit and over time will adapt to your hand pressure and usual motions. It's subtle but they do that, it's why the 14kt gold nibs are so useful because they adapt a little more than steel ones. But those run to three figures and up. For a modestly priced pen, this is pretty darn good! </div>
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I continued to sketch with it for days.</div>
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Tree sketch from life on vertical paper, with some text in block letters.</div>
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My first sketch was in a Moleskine Watercolor journal that I love and usually have with me when I'm out. My second one is in a small plain-paper notebook that I got as a freebie for entering an arts competition - the most thoughtful freebie I'd ever seen for that, it inspired sketching! So I started keeping that notebook and the pen in my pocket. I don't know the brand on the notebook or I'd review that too, it's rather nice. Has a small imprint of a tree in the center of a kraft paper cover and no text printed, so if anyone recognizes that, tell me!</div>
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Letting it rest for days at a time, it did not dry out. It was capped and rested in my pocket, but still, I've had some pens choke after even one day without use. This is a problem with using waterproof inks, if the point clogs then it takes pen cleaner solution and repeated cleanings to restore it to function. I usually preferred watersoluble inks for that reason, cleaning in the sink is easier. But so far this is going really well and as long as I keep it handy, I might be able to keep it from clogging. It bodes well that it actually sat still for almost a week while I was sick and didn't get used, but didn't dry out and clog.</div>
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That tells me the cap is well fitted and designed. It is a quality thing. The only pen I had that I could let rest for days and keep using was the old Mont Blanc super fancy one. It'd probably be about $400 or $500 today if I still had it and well worth repairing if I could find the parts and replace the missing piece. Technical pens like Rapidographs do not stand up to that treatment, so I use Pigma Microns when I want that sort of waterproof line.</div>
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Fountain pen lines have their own style though. It's a little more expressive than using a fine line Pigma Micron or technical pen. Press on it and the line faintly widens. Lighten your hand or tilt it and you get a very slight narrowing. It will pick up nuances of your handwriting and your sketch style. Blue isn't bad as a line art base for doing watercolors either.</div>
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Blue pen sketch of a pale short hair cat on a stone fence in front of trees.</div>
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I haven't used a watercolor wash with my pen sketches yet, but since the ink is waterproof that should work the same as my other pen-watercolor sketches. I just like the blue monochrome look so much that I haven't bothered. </div>
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Overall, this is a marvelous pen. It is available in other colors and many other fountain pens as well. Friends speak well of the Lamy Safari for sturdiness and ease of use. This is its own specialty, it's too easy to start collecting fountain pens - but keeping them loaded with several handy ink colors may make that feasible as long as I keep them handy!</div>
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When not using it for some time, clean out the pen thoroughly and store it empty. That saves the tips from clogging, sometimes irreparably. Mechanisms vary between different brands and how it's made can make a difference, the really high end ones have more than the bit of precious stone at the tip of the base or something like that. But even moderately priced fountain pens can be a lot of fun. The Conklin "Merlot" is definitely now a part of my permanent sketch kit!</div>
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Soon to come - FineTec Pearlescent Watercolors and more!</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-71247202592463421972017-12-13T06:17:00.000-08:002017-12-13T06:17:27.363-08:00Lyra Opaque Watercolors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I bought these at Dick Blick recently. I've wondered for a while whether they were as good as my Pelikan Opaque Watercolors. They looked like a very similar product - to the point that I wasn't sure which brand it was I first got at a Blick store in person decades ago, when the replacement pans were available in bins right next to the sets.<br />
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Well, I'm very happy to report that they're a very similar product at a lower price! Just as strong, the same kind of large removable (rearrangeable) pans, inside a slightly more convenient box. While I love my Pelikans, the box is a little inconvenient for stacking because it has this curved top so I can't put it in the middle of a stack with other sets of mediums. Just a small point of irritation that the Lyra set solved. It's also a little easier taking the top tray out - the top tray is entirely internal and nests. The Pelikan set has a lever button that needs to be pressed, a mechanism that can break under repeated wear and sometimes gets annoying.<br />
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This box has a pretty similar lid with fewer mixing pans in it, but still the same function. The brush they included is a 1/4" stiff bristle brush. I had never used a bristle brush with pan gouache, I'm used to round soft sables or synthetic sables for water mediums. So it was a little odd painting with it and I'm sad to say, like many bristle brushes the dang thing splayed out halfway through the painting. The hairs swelled and stuck out sideways, eliminating any sharp-edge flat brush tricks or tip created lines. This is annoying but it's a pretty cheap thing and the other brands didn't come with a brush, so big deal. I may or may not continue using it, the small bristle brush is good for its own effects. It'd be great for spattering or other rough techniques, it's just not a precision brush.<br />
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Also included, just like the Pelikan set, a little tube of white Deckweil. It didn't say "Chinese white" or watercolor, just Deckweil - Opaque White and repeats that in a couple of other languages. Good strong mixing white. I used a little of it in my example painting to lighten some color and it worked lovely. I've always wondered why they didn't just include a white pan with these sets, what I really would have liked would be two white pans so there's enough for mixing and lightening, maybe the second one a warm white like titanium buff sort of color. But the little tube of white is replaceable when used up. It will get used up faster than the pans themselves, I say this from long usage.<br />
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So here's the art I did with it, in my large Moleskine Watercolor journal:<br />
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Two pears, one yellow and one red, painted in Lyra opaque watercolor</div>
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The paint was easy to pick up enough for thick, opaque, creamy application. The white mixed well in the little mixing pans and the colors blended beautifully. The set includes Payne's Gray as well as black, so I've got my Cool Mixer. Fleischfarbe, the peach color that gets represented as flesh tone for German kids, is on the top tray rather than the bottom - the top tray is set up to function separately if you want a simple palette. Paynes Grau is on the top tray too, so your convenience colors are there without lifting trays if you're painting in a small area. Peach color portrait highlight is actually a useful color for all sorts of things, especially as a mixer if you want to warm the mix or highlights on browns and reddish colors.</div>
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The price break between the sets is quite a lot - $22 for the Pelikan set, $14 and change for the Lyra. That was surprising to me since the quality seems so similar. I don't know if there are differences in lightfastness, though gouache is one of those illustrator mediums where they don't always worry about lightfastness even in professional or artist grade products. But other than that, these are comparable in every way. </div>
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Hm. The Pelikan pans may be just slightly larger, but it's a pretty minor difference. Nope, checked, same size of pans unless the Pelikan ones are a bit deeper by a grain. The box on the Pelikan set is much more involved, with the release tabs and the artistic curved domed lid, the strip of sticky lamination to cover writing your name on the box. I think the biggest difference is the fancy, art deco looking Pelikan box. There's also a little more space in the Pelikan box if you want to squeeze in dabs of silver and gold gouache for detailing in the second layer, under the tray that has the little tube of white.</div>
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The paints are very opaque and pigment rich. They mix well and blend easily. They handle a lot like pan gouache. They dissolve fast and are easy to pick up with any brush. The color range is very similar and the colors are marked with their names in German. Very familiar, reminded me of the set I had in my youth. Overall I'd recommend this set just as I'd recommend the Pelikan set - the most convenient form of gouache that I've ever used.<br />
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I recommend either of these over tube gouache and for convenience, like the Lyra box a little better. Which box you like is going to be a matter of personal taste. I prefer being able to stack it to having the extra space inside.robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-72469526659546833782017-12-07T09:49:00.000-08:002017-12-07T09:49:31.375-08:00Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Water Brush Set<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7NAjZKyjTzc/Wil8w-e4V0I/AAAAAAAAKlw/_u70m0nrVhsbI2P2oG4bFvhG8R4qL5ViACLcBGAs/s1600/12-7-2017%2BCaran%2BdAche%2Bbrushes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="800" height="172" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7NAjZKyjTzc/Wil8w-e4V0I/AAAAAAAAKlw/_u70m0nrVhsbI2P2oG4bFvhG8R4qL5ViACLcBGAs/s320/12-7-2017%2BCaran%2BdAche%2Bbrushes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Sorry for the long two year hiatus. After moving from San Francisco to Arkansas, I got tied up in a lot of offline activity and also had to adapt to a new climate. Happily though, I'm back to getting new art supplies and testing them, so let's see what the newest water brushes I got are like!<br />
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<b>Caran d’Ache Piston Fill Water Brush</b><br />
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I’ve been using various water brushes for years. Niji and Sakura Koi are my two favorites, with an old Derwent a close third.<br />
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I’ve also enjoyed many other Caran d’Ache products. They tend to be pricy but worth the money, very high quality and good lasting intensity. Crayons and pencils and paints are all pigment rich, consistent, good texture and easy to use. So I thought, this ought to be interesting. Unlike many other products from this manufacturer, the price is similar to the other brands. So if you like these, it’s really just a matter of taste.<br />
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The main difference is in how they fill and that one of three point options is a fiber tip, along with a large round and medium round. They didn’t have a small round.<br />
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The ones I’m used to fill by squeezing and release water by squeezing. These new ones work by a piston fill system. The brush head comes off just like a regular one, but then you dip the barrel into a glass or dish of water and turn the knob on the end to draw up the water into the compartment.<br />
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I had trouble with it at first, the knob was stuck on the fiber tip one so I couldn’t get it to move at all. I tried again with the medium brush head and found on the first go that I’d only managed to pick up about 1/4” of water. In several tries I managed to more or less fill that, then tried the fiber tip one again. Same thing, it took several passes to get it full the first time. The large one was easier because I had a bit of practice with the other two.<br />
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Compared to the ease of filling a Niji water brush by holding the barrel under the tap and squeezing, it was slower and a bit more cumbersome. Also the piston sticks out of the end of the brush afterward, making it a bit harder to store in a pencil box or bag unless it’s long enough. So there’s two points of minor inconvenience. Still, the real test with this is whether because of the piston system, the water flow is more controllable.<br />
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One of the things that’s unique in this three-brush Museum Aquarelle set is that there’s a large round, a medium round and a fiber tip water brush. Artists who prefer using brush tip markers or bullet tip markers may really enjoy having a water brush that’s got a resilient fiber tip. The texture is markers, the color is as unlimited as your watercolor mixing skill.<br />
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The only comparable product is the clear blender in the Tombow dual tip brush pen sets. Those are clear water and have the same fiber tip brush tip as the colored ones, used for blending out the watersoluble inks of the Tombows. So you could use that with a pocket watercolor set for convenience, or with watersoluble pencils colored or graphite. Still, the Tombows aren’t easily refillable or made to be refillable and the Caran d’Ache product is. We’ll have to see how it holds up under heavy use, to really know how strong the fiber point is. But I’ll give it a go anyway in testing it.<br />
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A refillable fiber tip pen could be worth a little inconvenience in itself. It has its own texture and of course could also be used to modify and spread watersoluble markers like the Winsor & Newton Watercolor Markers that I’ve come to love.<br />
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So, let’s try that fiber tip brush.<br />
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Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Using Sennelier pan watercolors, I worked from a challenge photo and created a pair of cats, more sketched than painted. The fiber tip water brush behaved a lot more like a bullet tip marker than a brush pen.<br />
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Marks fade naturally at the usual pace of a water brush and unlike most markers, leave enough moisture on the paper to blend completely into a wash when scribbled. The cats were more drawn than painted, it was quick and easy.<br />
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Marker artists will enjoy that fiber tip brush. Water flow is very similar to the Niji water brush and I didn’t have to fiddle with the plunger often, only once when cleaning the tip to get the last of the black out. Color stayed in at a light hue for a long time, which became mildly frustrating when changing colors. But that was inexperience, now I know to really rinse the tip it’s not going to be a major problem.<br />
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The line is clean and reasonably broad, maybe 1 1/2 millimeters. The feel is solid and the hue even throughout the line. I can get it to a thinner line with very light use but not to the fine point that brush tips with hairs get. Overall the feel of the tip is more like a medium or broad nib Sharpie - solid, wide line, smooth laydown.<br />
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The water went through at a fast clip, but that was something I expected from the way the reservoir filled. It’d be good if using this in the field to keep a water cup handy as well as these brushes, though in the studio that fiber tip has its own strengths.<br />
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Some artists load water brushes with ink or liquefied watercolor. That eliminates the fade as the water comes through the head and can allow for a good number of interesting effects, like using several values in several brushes. Unlike most Caran d’Ache products, the price is comparable to the Niji waterbrush and other similar products.<br />
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The reservoir is much smaller than the Niji or the Sakura, more like the reservoir of a fountain pen. But still, that tip is excellent and the piston mechanism is manageable with a little practice. I’d just be sure to have a good source of water available if using it for travel sketching, or use several of them.<br />
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So now let's have a look at the others. I picked out a different challenge photograph, sketched it with a set of 12 Derwent Inktense that I keep around for travel sketching and washed it with the Medium Museum Aquarelle brush.<br />
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This may not be my greatest wildlife sketch, but it's not that bad either and the water brush performed beautifully. It came to a good fine point. The water flow was just right, not too much or too little. I could pump more through to change colors by twisting the piston, or let it be and let it flow naturally. It flows a little heavier than the Niji, but just right when it comes to a sketch and wash.<br />
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I wanted to leave some distinct lines in it, so didn't scrub down or wash it so thoroughly that they'd dissolve. My shading wasn't very even, but the brush smoothed that out lovely while still being able to get into tiny details without disturbing them.<br />
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All in all, I'd say try the Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle water brushes. Even with a little inconvenience learning to fill them, they're good quality. If you don't get any others, try a Fiber Tip one for variety of tip - but the brush ones are excellent and stand up with my best. Of course in the long run, I'll have to go back in a couple of years and see how long they last. But I trust they will likely be long wearing, considering the quality of Caran d'Ache goods. Their pricing seems mostly to reflect how much pigment goes into things like pencils, paint and crayons - they are always very pigment rich. This time it's just a well made tool that has its own unique place in my kit now!robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-63027077808758713012015-10-21T10:11:00.003-07:002015-10-21T10:11:50.165-07:00Alvin Ruling Pen and Caran d'Ache Neocolor II crayons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HWAeTglEebM/Vie5gXCFFkI/AAAAAAAAJs8/2XSt3PCgSvg/s1600/10-15-2015%2BAri%2BWhite%2BWhiskers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HWAeTglEebM/Vie5gXCFFkI/AAAAAAAAJs8/2XSt3PCgSvg/s320/10-15-2015%2BAri%2BWhite%2BWhiskers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ari Cat with White Whiskers</div>
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Pen and watercolor with Neocolor II white whiskers</div>
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Behold the beauty of my cat's bright white whiskers! I have been trying for over a decade, really the past fifteen years since I got this cat as a six week old kitten, to render his beautiful white whiskers against his dark black mask. White gel pens skipped, stuttered and picked up paint from whatever dark color I pulled them over. White watercolor turned out to be too thin and translucent even applied with a narrow fine brush and once, with a dip pen.</div>
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Alvin Ruling Pen in case</div>
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approx. 6" long minus loop</div>
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Some time ago I bought an Alvin Ruling Pen. I read about this type of pen for making fine lines with an even clean edge. Ordered it from Blick and tucked it in among small things to bring a large order back up to Free Shipping level. I love getting free stuff so when they do a big coupon I'll do that. </div>
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Then it went in a drawer and I forgot it was there, moved to California, never got around to trying it. Recently was looking for something else and found it, so took it out meaning to experiment. Like dip pens it's a little more cumbersome than my Pigma Microns or Pentel Pocket Brush pen. It needs to be filled constantly, per line almost. But the results floored me.</div>
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It wasn't that hard to use. I liquefied shavings from the white crayon by dropping water in them in a porcelain palette well and stirred around till I had a nice thick white liquid about like Half & Half for consistency - not quite as watery as ink or watercolor but still definitely liquid. Got a drop of the stuff into the tip of the pen and dared to put a whisker onto my perfect cat portrait which I hadn't reserved any whiskers on.</div>
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Caran d'Ache Neocolor II artist crayons set, closed</div>
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Wow. It was lovely. Next one skipped a little because the drop was almost used up, but I chalked that up to light hitting it intermittently and accepted it. Started reloading every whisker or two to get it right and finally had the results I wanted.</div>
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I chose the white Neocolor II crayon because they were a little more handy than digging out a set of acrylics to use acrylic paint and the same thing applied to white oil paint with the additional hassle of cleaning up after it. I wanted something watersoluble I could clean off the pen whether it worked or not and thin enough to flow like ink, opaque when thinned that far. It was my best guess for opacity at that liquidity and I wasn't wrong.</div>
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While my product photos are downloading, I'll give a little history on my Neocolor II crayons. I first bought them on impulse at Dixie Art Supply on Jackson Square in New Orleans when I'd sold a bunch of portraits, made my rent and bills and saw this beautiful set of watersoluble crayons sitting out. They were a little expensive but completely new art supplies. I thought they'd be easier to use than gouache or acrylic with a wet brush and I was right. They are fantastic. So I bought a set of 40, experimented, the paintings didn't sell because they weren't portraits of people's loved ones but I liked the results both wet and dry.</div>
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Then I found out that they could be used for face painting. They're pigment rich, non toxic, opaque, easily liquefied and blend wonderful. I started using them with costumes for Mardi Gras and various conventions, found some professional face painters using them and treasured the set for that. Lost them in a move, so years later replaced my set of 40 with the 84 color set. Colors below.</div>
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Neocolor II Watersoluble Artist Crayons 84 set open.</div>
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Look at that rich variety of earth tones, all those lovely lights and darks. I like having certain colors in my palette for both face paintin and painting. These are lightfast, pigment rich and have a texture a lot like firm oil pastels - very similar to the Caran D'Ache Neopastel oil pastels I reviewed on <a href="http://www.explore-oil-pastels-with-robert-sloan.com/" target="_blank">my oil pastels site.</a> Used as paint by liquefying shavings, they are opaque about like a good gouache but do not have the matte look of gouache.</div>
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Instead, the surface is a little waxy and has a bit of shine, less than graphite but more like a latex paint. It's a lovely look in itself. Moreover, a toothy surface for going over it with more dry marks or with oil pastel. Thin them far enough and like gouache they become transparent. Thin them just enough and you can easily lay light over dark with a brush.</div>
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I have also tried the similar Cretacolor AquaStic watersoluble oil pastels. I'm not sure why Neocolor II crayons don't get called watersoluble oil pastels, they act just like them and are a step softer and more opaque. I prefer the Neocolor II to the AquaStic product but both are very good and versatile.</div>
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These are a far cry from the Crayolas you used as a kid. They are an adult artist material and works done with them either mixed media or by themselves are archival, lightfast, top quality and can be sold with confidence. If your skills are high enough to sell your art, they will easily pay for themselves as a bold, saturated medium with enormous possibilities. My big set is currently $148 at Dick Blick and I've got a small pocket set of 15 in my cart for my next art supply order. They are wonderful for field sketching in the same way watercolor pencils are, sketch and wash is easy with them.</div>
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They are extremely cost effective! You can sketch fast on toned paper like Canson Mi-Tientes or just use watercolor paper and tone it with a wash. Wet and dry effects are easily controlled and their bluntness encourages free style looseness. However if you want fine detail they can be sharpened in a pencil sharpener or with a knife that doesn't need to be sharp. That white stick is great for dabbing in an eye highlight if sharpened.</div>
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Overall five stars for both products, a great new tool and a wonderful, versatile old friend painting, drawing and sketching medium.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-73080143036631946722015-10-10T15:56:00.000-07:002015-10-10T15:56:16.213-07:00Pentel Pocket Brush Pen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Emu in Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and watercolor</div>
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7" square on watercolor journal</div>
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Sorry for the long delay in posting. Life happens and I fell behind on a number of things. Today's new product is the best of its kind - with just one caveat.</div>
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The Pentel Pocket Brush Pen takes a long learning curve!</div>
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I bought this pen three or four months ago. I had enormous trouble controlling it at first. The point is not the same as my Tombow dual tip brush pens or even my Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers, Pitt Artist Pen brush tips, Pigma Micron brush tips. It's exponentially more sensitive with a much finer tip - and so it's much more sensitive to pressure. Much more likely to flow thick when I want thin or flip off into another direction with an unexpected tremor.</div>
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Cat sketches from last May when I first got the pen.</div>
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The lines are a lot rougher in the ones I first did with it. I couldn't control them as well and sometimes overcompensated, made the whole line too dark. I started penciling under anything I did with it.</div>
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I recommend this pen wholeheartedly. The tip is unlike any other brush pen. It's actually a very fine brush with hairs and the best tip of any round brush I've played with, comparable to the best sable rounds. It has real hairs and the ink is of course proprietary but waterproof, archival and black like the better Pigma Micron brush tips and so on <i>when absolutely new.</i></div>
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It hasn't worn down despite a lot of sketching. The main thing is, don't expect great results on first use. Practice with it. One great exercise is to try lettering freehand with it - do a text in your art journal and don't worry about botched letters or unbalanced ones. I still occasionally get too-thick lines in my monogram signature as I get used to its unparalleled sensitivity.</div>
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I bought it because James Gurney recommended it - and thankfully, he mentioned that it was super sensitive and took a while to really learn.</div>
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What I didn't realize was that in learning to control this pen, my overall pen work would become so much better. I've spent decades relying on the clean lines of Pigma Microns and Rapidographs, technical pens with a mechanically smooth line. The expressive thick-thin lines are coming into my work more now on this scale now that I've got the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.</div>
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It's about $15 and the cartridge packs are reasonable too. Much more like a fountain pen than the usual disposable brush pen. Of course it'd make a perfect writing instrument for someone using Chinese or Japanese traditional scripts, most brush pens originated as writing pens for Asian calligraphy. But this one really tops the list for fine detail and sensitive control of line.</div>
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Educate your hand and invest in one!</div>
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Asian Leopard Cat</div>
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Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and Watercolor ATC</div>
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The Asian Leopard Cat ATC was a breakthrough that made me realize just how powerful this pen can be in my illustrations. I deliberately let myself use very small marks and pointed strokes, made the fur shaggy, used strong marks and light marks deliberately to create the animal's markings without hard edged shapes. The results stunned me. This cat would not have been so natural or illustrative without the perfect point on the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.</div>
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Expressive lines are harder to learn than smooth line work and cross hatching, but once you get it you'll never turn back! i still haven't used up that first cartridge either, done dozens of these drawings and renderings without a skip or a blotch. Letting it sit for a few days capped doesn't make it blob or choke either - as always my supplies rotate and I can go a week or two without using it, then decide I need line work again.</div>
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So if you like brush pens, get a Prismacolor or Pigma Micron or Pitt Artist Pen brush tip just to start and then get one of these to upgrade. Keep the thing in your pocket, sketch with it often and don't expcet perfect results until you start getting them. Penciling first so that while inking you concentrate on line control rather than design helps a lot while learning - the Asian Leopard Cat and Emu were penciled first. But now that I'm more used to it, I've begun doing quick cat gestures without penciling again and gotten good results! They will come! Just be patient with yourself and make yourself use it often till they do!</div>
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For an easy, introductory brush pen, get a black Tombow Dual Tip for notans and thumbnails, then add a gray or two for value studies. The larger brush tip is a bit more forgiving and will also help you avoid extraneous detail in preliminary drawings. I find I tend to do more detailed drawings if thumbnailing with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen due to its size and fineness but it fills in black areas well and can create halftone textures by hatching. Thumbnails may become another good practice activity if you hatch your middle tones.</div>
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The pen is available at Dick Blick and probably other art supply stores and I got cartridges at Amazon, so that's a convenience.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-13101813115957340652015-05-27T13:52:00.000-07:002015-05-27T13:52:20.500-07:00Holbein Artists' Soft Pastels 36 Half Sticks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OrE7F3xPZR4/VWYPnbR3i5I/AAAAAAAAIYg/VnerKESQPkg/s1600/Holbein%2B36%2BPastels%2B001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OrE7F3xPZR4/VWYPnbR3i5I/AAAAAAAAIYg/VnerKESQPkg/s320/Holbein%2B36%2BPastels%2B001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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36 Holbein Half Sticks</div>
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A surprise gift from a dear friend added a new brand of pastels to my habits both at home and plein air. These are nice pastels. Medium-soft, they feel a bit like Rembrandt half sticks and very smooth. </div>
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The color range in a set of 36 was excellent especially as a flower palette. I use a Colourist style so having good tints aronnd the spectrum, a few good spectrum darks and quite strong brights more than made up for relatively few neutrals. No actual grays and no cooler dark brown are a little inconvenient but nowhere near as bad as missing tints.</div>
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Your favorite hues may or may not be included, so I present the photo of the colors first. It's a bit overexposed. The reds and oranges aren't all tints, though there are good tints. Also some spring green and intense aqua colors. One workhorse somewhat dark sap green can easily be modified and lightened with green tints and a dark warm blue, maroon and relatively dark violet-cast blue help for shadowing. They're nice pastels for outdoor use or indoor. You'll find yourself overlaying pure hues if you want to mute them but they're all there.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MA0AfGCv3sk/VWYP2rhGbTI/AAAAAAAAIYo/2HhiFLJH4MQ/s1600/Holbein%2B36%2BPastels%2B003%2Bcover%2Bcoin%2Bfor%2Bscale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MA0AfGCv3sk/VWYP2rhGbTI/AAAAAAAAIYo/2HhiFLJH4MQ/s320/Holbein%2B36%2BPastels%2B003%2Bcover%2Bcoin%2Bfor%2Bscale.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Cover of the set with a US quarter on it for scale.</div>
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Most of all, the set is so small it literally fit in the pocket of my khaki pockets vest. It's waist length with various medium or small zippered or velcro closed pockets full of art supplies, pocket watercolor set, assorted pencils and pocket size journals. I wear that whenever I go out. This is the first set of soft pastels that fits in that handy pocket. The box is 6 3/4" x 4 3/4" sturdy cardboard box with styrene tray and foam overlay inside a sturdy clear sleeve made from that strong tough material used for CD and small electronics packaging. You know, the stuff you need a tin snips to get at the USB key you just bought.</div>
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Normally I carry a 12 color Color Conte set but now I've finally got soft pastels in my "hands free" going out kit! Tuck some 4" x 6" pieces of sanded paper inside the box over the foam and you're good to go for plein air. You can even cut them with 1/4" matting edge around the sides. </div>
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What fits in my vest pocket would fit most jacket pockets I've ever had. I always rate packaging on pastel sets and this one may wind up outliving its contents. I like the cardboard box, slots and sleeve style of package anyway for sturdiness and the exact size of this kit just put it in the same space as 10 or 12 color sets I've used in the past. Very, very handy!</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-62JTAJek2cc/VWYQOhrGSjI/AAAAAAAAIYw/9bDodHxLZzU/s1600/5-2-2015%2BDaffodils%2BDone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-62JTAJek2cc/VWYQOhrGSjI/AAAAAAAAIYw/9bDodHxLZzU/s320/5-2-2015%2BDaffodils%2BDone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Two Daffodils, 9" x 12"</div>
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Holbein pastels on Bogus Recycled Rough sketch paper.</div>
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Here's one of the pastels I've done with this set. The green cast darker blue shows up more clearly blue in the photo than in person, where going over it with the mid-dark sap green brought it to a nice blue-green. Cameras do that sometimes. Other than that the hues are very close. </div>
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Medium softness in a category with Rembrandt or Gallery Mungyo Soft Rounds (extruded), these are good little workhorse half sticks. One commenter on an art site I belonged to mentioned there's some question of lightfastness in Holbein pastels. Several of them categorize Holbein pastels as semi-hard rather than medium-soft but I've seen photos of the full sticks and they're rectangular so this may be a different product from the same company. The two reds and one orange seemed to have a slight fluorescent zing so that could be the issue. </div>
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So whether or not these are as archival as other artist grade brands, they are an excellent choice for early layers, for sketching, most of all for fast color studies when you're out and don't want to be burdened with a large box. The full range of Holbein pastels is about 140 or 144, quite a good range, and those are long rectangular sticks that look fatter than the usual hard pastels sticks. They may or may not have the same texture. But their Artist's Soft round sticks are just good workhorse soft round sticks. You may want to replace those problematic reds with an orange-red and a magenta Rembrandt or some more lightfast brand if planning serious paintings. Or do a home lightfastness test if you have a sunny window. </div>
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I'll give these a provisional B grade because of the lightfastness rumors, would love to hear from readers on that issue pro or con and whether that's all the colors.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-78158973020515209712015-01-27T09:36:00.000-08:002015-01-27T09:36:12.595-08:00Henri Roche Metallic Pastels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PyHYmH0OSPA/VMfGjToIlhI/AAAAAAAAIAg/DcgXIUrhRic/s1600/1-27-2015%2BHeavy%2BMetal%2BPear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PyHYmH0OSPA/VMfGjToIlhI/AAAAAAAAIAg/DcgXIUrhRic/s1600/1-27-2015%2BHeavy%2BMetal%2BPear.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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Heavy Metal Pear 6" square</div>
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Henri Roche' pastels on Uart 400 sanded paper</div>
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Above is my latest grand experiment with Henri Roche' metallic pastels.I had the delight of getting six pieces of these from Isabelle at La Maison Du Pastel to test them out and write them up. They are lush. They are rich and beautiful. The metallic pastels are much softer than the other Roche' pastels, which have a pleasing firm texture but go on very smooth and lay down a lot of color. </div>
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The solid color Roche' lay down a lot of dust and do like the technique Degas used of laying in a layer, spraying fixative and layering again. The fixative is important even on sanded paper and especially with the metallics. I laid in the darkest silver, nearly black, for the background and went over it with color in a way that worked gorgeous in life - the sparkle is still there and the color mixes with it beautifully. I did the background first and then my usual technique of getting rid of loose dust. I held it over the trash and snapped firmly with my finger. </div>
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Oops. Half the color came off. It really needs the fixative for early layers to adhere well. So use a good fixative with these pastels. I used Krylon Fine Art Fixatif which is workable fixative that has some UV protection. Others may prefer Spectrafix, but the misting head on my Spectrafix bottles sometimes spatters and I didn't want to do that in a painting where I really needed fixative layers to hold it together.</div>
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Roche' has nine shades of gold, nine shades of silver from a white iridescent to a black iridescent and nine shades of copper. The two copper pieces I got, one was slightly lighter and more golden. I'd expect some of the coppers to run dark too, almost like bronze. You can get Roche' metalics anywhere Roche' pastels are sold. Online that would be fineartstore.com, which also carries 3, 12 and 36 color half sticks sets and the amazing full range set of Henri Roche' pastels in two lovely rosewood seven drawer cabinets. Isabelle is recreating or creating a thousand colors and so the full range set costs a bit more every time I look, but you get more colors so it's about the same. It will be the largest pastels range in the world when she's done I think, and plans this for 2020 so that's not too far off! Very cool if I get a bestseller and win the Literary Lottery.</div>
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Till then, I love these pastels for their intense color and unique texture. The paper they liked best so far oddly enough is Bee Bogus Recycled Rough paper, which isn't archival so I'm still looking for their favorite paper. A finer grit sanded paper might be great, they did well on the Uart but generated a lot of dust from how gritty it is - it's one step short of Wallis for rough grit.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u2Zgfj7-wPY/VMfGmrH4LeI/AAAAAAAAIAo/-C8je5t2h30/s1600/1-26-2015%2BOrnaments.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u2Zgfj7-wPY/VMfGmrH4LeI/AAAAAAAAIAo/-C8je5t2h30/s1600/1-26-2015%2BOrnaments.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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Holiday Ornaments</div>
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6" square on Stillman & Birn Beta rough watercolor paper</div>
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Metallic Roche' performed well on my Stillman & Birn Beta pastel journal. I've been priming some pages with Art Spectrum Multimedia (Colourfix) primer but painted about half of them just on the rough white watercolor paper since it has a small texture element with deep tooth just like the Bogus paper. Wow! They did great on it. Background of green velvet was done in Rembrandt half sticks with a few touches of Unisons, the ornaments themselves entirely in Metallic Roche'. This was yesterday's daily painting.</div>
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Again, the dust piled up around the strokes. Metallic Roche' are very soft and will give thick impasto strokes. They are beautifully opaque, when creating edges I was able to easily go over darker colors or other colors to get a hard edge. They handle a lot like Sennelier instead of like the other Roche' - very soft and dusty, but rich and opaque. </div>
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A few days before that, I'd tried them on Strathmore Artagain paper.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ue9Z1R0iws/VMfGV1ckJ4I/AAAAAAAAIAQ/ri1Kx1hqd1E/s1600/1-23-2015%2BSilver%2BFish%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5Ue9Z1R0iws/VMfGV1ckJ4I/AAAAAAAAIAQ/ri1Kx1hqd1E/s1600/1-23-2015%2BSilver%2BFish%2B2.jpg" height="254" width="320" /></a></div>
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Silver Fish 8" x 10"</div>
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Henri Roche' pastels on Strathmore Artagain paper, pinkish gray</div>
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Strathmore Artagain paper does not have as much tooth as Canson Mi-Tientes. Its surface is almost smooth though its colors are beautiful with flecks of dark fibers in among the lighter ones for a tweedy effect. Roche' colors did not rub deep into the paper the way they did on the Bogus. They floated on top of it and made a thin film. The metallics behaved better, giving me thick impasto strokes and gorgeous opacity even on this annoying paper.</div>
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I really don't like the Artagain much and I now know the other Henri Roche' pastels hate it. Every pastel has its favorite surface and its hated surface. Henri Roche' metallic pastels are wonderful if you want a strong, shining metallic effect that is opaque enough to go right over dark or light layers in other pastels - even thick layers will be covered.</div>
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The pinkish cast to the silver on both the silver ornament and the silver area of the pear comes from the reflection of a bright orange t-shirt I wore to paint the ornaments and a bright red seat cover on my chair. Metal reflects everything around it so a pinkish cast to metallic accents is going to happen to my photography. Unfortunately the one on Artagain didn't photo well, the white iridescent highlight on the silver vanished because the camera happened to catch a lot of light on the silver itself. It's more distinct on the Heavy Metal Pear and in life both the silver fish and the silver ornament look more like that.</div>
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I recommend these metallic pastels for accents and special effects. One of their best features is that you can do values with them. The wide range of values means an artist could do machines or metal objects justice and still give a matte metallic shine to all the values in the painting. Flat areas of gold or silver or copper will gleam the way the real metals do, this is another good choice for haloes and ornamental goldwork, or metallic backgrounds to colorful subjects.</div>
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Many thanks to Isabelle for the samples! These pastels are high priced but worth the money if you love the effects. The metallics take a light hand and give wonderful impasto effects, the dust actually adheres well to itself which is some of why a hard snap knocked over large chunks of it. With fixative those big texture elements do adhere solidly. </div>
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I haven't tried either metallic or color Roche' with a water or alcohol wash yet, but I rarely use my most expensive pastels for a flat underpainting. I'd recommend using an underpainting with Roche' and save their brilliant colors and intense effects for final layers where they can be seen. Polychromos hard pastels would be a good choice for underpainting, or that grand workhorse Rembrandt.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-79709809521535983022014-11-19T16:58:00.000-08:002014-11-19T16:58:37.968-08:00Winsor Newton Bockingford Watercolour Paper<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hPhhvedkEAE/VG00ssbhZII/AAAAAAAAH1Y/dlDqxA_Z96U/s1600/11-19-2014%2BRain%2BClouds%2BHill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hPhhvedkEAE/VG00ssbhZII/AAAAAAAAH1Y/dlDqxA_Z96U/s1600/11-19-2014%2BRain%2BClouds%2BHill.jpg" height="229" width="320" /></a></div>
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Rain Clouds over Hill</div>
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5' x 7" Winsor & Newton Watercolour Marker</div>
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on Winsor & Newton 140lb Not surface Bockingford Watercolour Paper</div>
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I went out today for an appointment and decided to bring the Travel Set as my main art supply, just leave my usual backpack home. Filled the water bottle. That is one generous water bottle! Big as a pack of cigarettes, it'd be good for very sloshy washes and such techniques. No running out.<br />
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I packed some extras into it, my trusty Niji water brush and three Pigma Micron pens - size 01, size 05 and Graphic size 3 (chisel tip) which are all non soluble pens. Fit very nicely across the extra pocket. I'll be testing the Bockingford paper today in the waiting room, so stand by for another image and more about these fascinating artist grade markers!<br />
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Truth to tell, I have never actually ordered and used Bockingford paper, so this is another new experiment. I've also got my Winsor & Newton Artist's Field Kit in my pocket so it may turn into mixed water mediums.<br />
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Turned out I didn't need any extras. On the way, it rained. I got several good photos of reflecting wet streets and then we wound up at the top of a very tall hill looking across at another hill silhouetted against a cloudy sky so light it was white haloing the trees - and lowering clouds above it.<br />
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I loved those clouds. The camera wouldn't register the sky as anything but white. So I sketched fast with W&N Watercolour Marker, Ivory Black, hoping the water brush would dissolve it to get something like the cloud effect. Working fast, it did. In only two minutes I got the effect I wanted.<br />
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Something in me said <i>Stop. You're done.</i><br />
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So I did, stopped, signed and dated it carefully at the next traffic stop. All this took place at one stop light. I was letting it dry before the van moved. I was just lucky there was a bit of traffic to slow us up so I could get it done.<br />
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Bockingford paper has a Not surface. I usually expect that to be a bit like vellum drawing paper - toothy, a little coarse but still something fine enough for the usual sorts of drawings. I was dubious about this paper once I stripped the plastic off because it seemed to have a weave texture like the rough side of Canson Mi-Tientes. It's not as harsh though.<br />
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The surface of the paper is strong. It took some scrubbing to turn the hard-edged black marks of the Ivory Black marker into those loose shifting grays but there is no texture deformity in the wash. It's a tough paper, high quality, designed to stand up to serious watercolorists' propensity for heavy washes, razoring, scrubbing, spattering. I'd meant to try spattering on it since that happened by accident onto the plastic but there is no right place for it in this painting.<br />
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The weave texture is small enough to give some bumps and valleys to broken color. As the brush dried, I got a good irregular edge at the bottom where the gray met dry paper. Within the clouds, other light passages appeared at random as I scrubbed out or as the brush skipped between broad marks. A watery splash at the bottom of the shading on the left hill (far hill) broke in some very interesting ways because of the texture and sizing. This is paper made for an expressive painter. It handles in some ways like rough, but I was able to get quite small details with the brush tip of the marker on it.<br />
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I have always liked and trusted Winsor & Newton watercolours for their strong, pigment-rich consistent high quality. They are the first of three artist grade brands I've loved and this is an old company from a country that loves watercolor. I shouldn't be surprised the Bockingford watercolour paper is that high quality too. It handles wonderfully.<br />
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Winsor & Newton also makes a less expensive student grade Cotman watercolour paper in 90lb or 140lb weights and an Artists' Water Colour Paper that is 100% cotton linter in 90lb, 140lb and 260lb. Bockingford is the mid-grade paper, suitable for artists, better than Cotman but not the top drawer all rag stuff.<br />
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Even the Cotman is acid free. Bockingford is internally and externally sized, which is probably why it performed so well in my wet and dry dashing crazed painting madness. Full sheets of Bockingford paper are also available in several tints if you want to experiment with Blue, Cream, Eggshell, Gray, Oatmeal and White. Cream looks decidedly pink-peach in hue and Oatmeal a little darker and slightly yellower. With this example for the texture, I know I'm going to enjoy the tinted Bockingford as well.<br />
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Dick Blick carries the Bockingford Tinted Paper full sheets of 22" x 30" Not surface 140lb paper, so the next time I order I'll try their different colors and review how this handles for pastels. With that broken color texture it should be interesting for dry work too. Colored pencil artists may find it easy or difficult to deal with the texture but it felt soft, as if serious burnishing would bring it down to a polished smoothness.<br />
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I'd recommend this paper for watercolorists who like to play and experiment. Winsor & Newton's products are usually a step up from their category and even though this is the mid range paper, its working qualities are great. It's very responsive, maybe that's the sizing or the recipe but it has a beautiful texture that actually improved my painting.robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-71209207283417838692014-11-18T14:03:00.000-08:002014-11-19T16:23:03.784-08:00Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers Travel Set<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SuQOO1UiE44/VGuudfc1JJI/AAAAAAAAH0o/J_7Guxfkw6s/s1600/11-12-2014%2BWinsor%2BNewton%2BMarkers%2BSet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-SuQOO1UiE44/VGuudfc1JJI/AAAAAAAAH0o/J_7Guxfkw6s/s1600/11-12-2014%2BWinsor%2BNewton%2BMarkers%2BSet.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Ari Cat posing with the W&N Watercolour Markers Travel Set</div>
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For scale and because he's beautiful.</div>
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Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers are a new product. Pigmented and archival, they join pan and tube watercolors plus their brand of watercolor sticks as another form of delivering artist grade watercolor. With 36 open stock colors, the range is small as markers go but very good as watercolors. Colors include a lot of hues, which suggests to me that modern pigments like quinacridones that are lightfast, transparent and vibrant form the backbone of the color mixes. Pigments are not listed but the color names with "Hue" suggest it.</div>
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Cheap Joe's has a sale on these for the holidays including tin sets of 6 and 12, open stock, sets of 24 or 36 and the 8 color Travel Set. Open stock is about $5 a marker and my Travel Set was $39.99 - the usual big discount at an online store. </div>
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I have a great fondness for travel sets and portability. So with the case, two good if small W&N Sceptre brushes size 0 and 4 rounds, water bottle, clear folding water bucket and 7" x 5" Bockingford watercolor paper pad essentially free in the sale, I decided to go with this range rather than the 12 color tin. </div>
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Case and accessories are all good. I'll review the paper later both with markers and with other watercolor techniques. The water bottle is generous, so is the bucket and the case is deep. There's plenty of room to add other markers and a small pocket between the water bottle and brush loops to add Niji water brushes, pens, or a candy tin with other supplies. There's room above the markers to put in a Sakura or other pocket watercolor pan set or any other self contained small field supplies you want. Pigma Micron pens fit across it neatly. So this case is a good choice to contain all your field supplies in one unit as many of my friends do for their journaling adventures. Small oblong art journals would fit in the paper pocket depending on flatness or width. Very useful zippered case with nylon over a sturdy stiffener.</div>
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Colors included are Alizarin Crimson Hue, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Dioxazine Violet, Prussian Blue Hue, Sap Green, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber and Ivory Black. Color swatches on the website seemed pale both on the Winsor Newton site and at Cheap Joe's but came out stronger in person although Alizarin Crimson Hue doesn't go as deep dark as I'm used to with Permanent Alizarin Crimson let alone the original pigment. </div>
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The markers have a bullet tip with a pointed cap on one end and a brush tip with a blunt cap on the other. <b>Warning! The blunt tip has to go down when you put them back in the case. </b>If you put it in upside down with blunt on top and pointed cap downward, you can't get the marker cap out again. It gets stuck in the pocket and takes needle nose pliers to wiggle it loose to get it out. This is a weird, mildly annoying thing about the case but irrelevant in tins or other cases. Just remember that if you get the Travel Set, the case won't let you put them brush tip up even if you use it more. </div>
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My first test was a monochrome sketch in Prussian Blue Hue.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0WSas99nboU/VGuzWYabRLI/AAAAAAAAH04/VyLPfaBMC6g/s1600/11-12-2014%2BMonochrome%2BBlue%2BSkyscape.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0WSas99nboU/VGuzWYabRLI/AAAAAAAAH04/VyLPfaBMC6g/s1600/11-12-2014%2BMonochrome%2BBlue%2BSkyscape.jpg" height="320" width="311" /></a></div>
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Monochrome Prussian Blue Hue Skyscape and Mountains</div>
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Wow! Unlike my first color tests on printer paper, the color washed out beautifully. These perform well for pen and wash sketching using the bullet tip. I experimented with some techniques to gradate a sky using a very dark blue pen-wash and it worked well. Some lighter areas I just pulled color out of the darker ones or used what was on the brush after blending. I love how they wash out.</div>
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On the packing slip I tested each color to see if the markers all worked. I always do this with any set of markers, they can be factory defective even from the best companies. The color didn't wash out well on that slip so but both tips performed beautifully. The brush tip reminds me a lot of the Pitt Artist Pen Big Brush tip - pointed, springy, very sharp point good for precision and juicy.</div>
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I found out by accident knocking around one of them that they're juicy enough to splatter some tiny droplets of Alizarin Crimson Hue on the plastic coated cover of the Bockingford pad. So using a pencil and tapping the marker on it to do splatter effects will work, at least while the markers are new.</div>
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Sketches with W&N Watercolour Markers</div>
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Mixing and Blending</div>
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Next, I started testing overlays, color mixtures and wash textures. I had a lot of fun creating both mixed violet and dioxazine violet passages in the daisy. My life sketch of my sleeping cat worked well, similar to pen sketches of him but the soft wash on his brown back added another dimension plus gave me some brown on the water brush to darken the shadows on the pillows. I played with different colors on the pears, oranges and persimmon to see what kind of hues I'd get mixing and washing.</div>
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Sap Green is actually a vibrant, very bright neon green. I knocked it back with Alizarin Crimson Hue, Burnt Umber and Dioxazine Violet and it's still very saturated. If you're doing underpainting, this could be great or you may want to start off with Yellow Ochre and just bring in a little of the green on it. You'll find your own favorite combinations and techniques.</div>
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I easily pulled color off the tips with the waterbrush when I wanted to gently modify a wash without mixing as drastically as I would putting marks of another color or to make light marks. I've been using my Niji waterbrush for convenience but the included Sceptre brushes, water bottle and bucket would do the same thing. Mixing colors was very easy and on the brown-gold pears I was able to soften fresh marks and work them into the area gently. It takes a little getting used to, washing out marker lines and dots.</div>
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I love using a brush tip marker. That's one of my favorite sketch modes. My favorites to date were Tombow dual tip markers and Pitt Artist Pens Big Brush as well as their smaller Brush Tip. But the Tombow Dual Tip brush pens are not intended to be lightfast. They're fugitive design tools. Not something I'd feel comfortable underpainting a pastel sketch with or using for a painting on good paper for fine art or mixed media fine art.</div>
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Winsor & Newton has filled a big gap. Handle them as you would brush tip markers, but be aware this is real watercolor, strong, mixable and more lightfast. They have a few quirks but overall I'm glad I got them beacuse of that big gap.</div>
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Pulling the Ivory Black out and taking the cone cap off the bullet tip, I pulled the bullet tip right off once, but was able to put it back in place. It seems to be working right now. So handle them a bit gently, if they come apart put them back together and always put the blunt tip down if you're using the Travel Set.</div>
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These are not markers like Prismacolor markers or Copic or other design markers. You won't find a range of hundreds with gradated tints and darks to use individually, tints are created by wet brush pulling color off the tip or by pulling tints out of darker marks. Or by scribbling some color somewhere else and pulling it up out of that.</div>
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It's very easy to mix colors back and forth between areas, An accident putting violet into the green pear to mute it brought some green back to mute the violet shadow, so I started doing it deliberately to all the shadows to mute them a little. If handled delicately, the bullet tip can make very small dots. For the oranges in the back, I covered them with Cadmium Yellow Hue solidly and then dotted Alizarin Crimson Hue over it, then washed, giving a suggestion of orange peel texture while creating a good bright mixed orange. I could have smoothed out the persimmon but didn't because this is a typical quick sketch, not a refined painting.</div>
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In conjunction with other watercolor forms this can be a very powerful tool. They're fast for sketching, the tips are high quality, the paint's good and they're worth the money. Just be really careful about mechanical problems like putting them in upside down or pulling the cap off too hard. They're not quite as sturdy as other markers I've owned but those were all fugitive except the Pitt Artist Pens. Those really did need tint markers because there was no thinning out the colors once down. </div>
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I bought these largely to use for underpainting field pastel paintings but with how they handle, sketching and painting is irresistible. It'll take a while to discover all the techniques possible with this new form of watercolor. I've often thought some of my Tombow sketches could be taken seriously as paintings but it's frustrating that they're fugitive. </div>
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As a combination with Pitt Artist Pens it's great. These are watersoluble, the Pitt product is also archival but permanent and nonsoluble. Marks you don't want to move go in Pitt, marks you want to be able to soften in Winsor & Newton. I may invest in the full range eventually or not, but this set is going to prove very useful. The travel kit is a good bargain and can become a carryall for assorted small field supplies.<br />
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EDIT: 11-19-2014<br />
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Went out, decided to make the Bockingford paper a new entry.</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-51886631231633518302014-10-31T17:33:00.003-07:002014-10-31T17:33:34.646-07:00Rembrandt Pastels <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bkeK9jtfjEc/VFQgj8O_4tI/AAAAAAAAHwU/dYu2gyJmj3g/s1600/Rembrandt%2B60%2Bhalf%2Bsticks%2Bclosed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bkeK9jtfjEc/VFQgj8O_4tI/AAAAAAAAHwU/dYu2gyJmj3g/s1600/Rembrandt%2B60%2Bhalf%2Bsticks%2Bclosed.jpg" height="227" width="320" /></a></div>
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Rembrandt 60 half sticks </div>
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Back in 2004 or 2005, an oil painter friend gave me a box of 60 vintage Rembrandt pastels. He got the set from an oil painter who tried the medium and didn't like it. He'd tried the medium and didn't like it. The box dated back to the early 1950s or earlier, it might even have been older than I was! The pastels were wonderful, just as good as the 30 Grumbacher assorted and 30 Grumbacher Skin Tones that I originally started with back in 1992 when I became a street artist in New Orleans. I soon found myself taking up pastels again.</div>
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I didn't review them because they were antiques. Rembrandt had changed its formula more than once since then, some pastel artist friends warned. There'd be no way anyone would be sure of getting vintage ones. So I went on trying other brands, got Senneliers, got Art Spectrum, got a number of hard pastels sets and other brands and samplers. I didn't think of writing about Rembrandt.</div>
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Friends and teachers including <a href="http://charlotteherczfeld.com/" target="_blank">Charlotte Herczfeld</a> described Rembrandt as "Good workhorse pastels." She used Rembrandt color numbers for her listed Colourist palette in her free class "Still Life the Colourful Way" on WetCanvas, which completely revolutionized how I paint and view color. Still, I used my old ones as part of a mixed brands set and didn't think about getting more until recently.</div>
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Rembrandt like many other brands came out with a good 120 color half sticks set. This makes them great for beginners. You can get a good large palette at half the price with twice the colors. Moreover, Rembrandt's palette is extremely well balanced! They were sold out on the big half sticks set when I ordered. I'll still get it sometime to have a nice big studio palette. What I realized was that I could do far worse for plein air than to get a good 60 color half stick set in a sturdy compact set box and a trusted artist grade brand. Maybe "Workhorse" medium texture pastels were just what I needed!</div>
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I looked over the pictures of the 60 and 90 color palettes and discovered to my pleasure that everything essential is in the 60 color range except one stick. I can easily transpose one stick in later on and plan to - it could be improved by swapping out one of two gray-browns I rarely use for a deep dark violet that I often use in landscapes. That's personal. Someone who used gray-browns more than I do might not want to.</div>
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Rembrandt 60 half sticks colors</div>
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This is one of the better balanced 60 color sets I've ever seen. Important hues like violet, turquoise, magenta aren't just there but there in values too. I've got a selection of darks, brights, neutrals, lights around the spectrum and that slightly toned stick at upper left is actually a white. It's just a little smudged.</div>
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<i>Because I used this box so much last month!</i></div>
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Once in a while an art supply comes along that is so useful it literally changes my habits. I wound up painting in pastels more thanks to the compact palette and versatile textures of the Rembrandt 60 Color Half Sticks Set. I'd recommend the full range if you want an anchor set of medium-soft artist grade pastels with good lightfastness, open stock easily available for replacements, moderately priced and available in places around the world that don't always enjoy the variety we get in the Continental USA. Rembrandt is a solid value. </div>
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Their texture is medium soft. They're firm enough to create hard pastel effects, linear strokes, tiny details with edges of sticks. They're soft enough to scumble or do some basic impasto strokes though they won't go on as juicy as Sennelier or Terry Ludwig. You can use them from beginning to end and have a good painting on sanded or unsanded paper.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bKarnBwNg2k/VFQg-cBHSrI/AAAAAAAAHwk/9JXtLoGCPyw/s1600/10-10-2014%2BSpotlight%2BMarigolds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-bKarnBwNg2k/VFQg-cBHSrI/AAAAAAAAHwk/9JXtLoGCPyw/s1600/10-10-2014%2BSpotlight%2BMarigolds.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></div>
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Marigolds artwork with Rembrandt 60 half sticks pastels</div>
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on Aquabee Hemp Draw unsanded paper 9" x 12"</div>
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I wound up doing eight pastels the month I bought them and 13 pastels this month. That's how much this little set affected my habits. From doing pastels perhaps once or twice a month I went to prolific sketching and painting. Something about the sheer convenience and flexibility of this bright little range made them much easier to use than specialty pastels I bought in smaller ranges or very large sets that took more setup and cleanup.</div>
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I admit some of that is personal and has to do with my life situation. If it's next to me and I don't need to get up, I'm more likely to use an art supply more often. I collect pocket sets and field kits not because I go out to paint every day, but because at least nine times out of ten I'm using it to set up in a very small space and do not have room to spread out something like my full range Pan Pastels or 200 Winsor & Newtons. I bought those knowing they were discontinued for a bargain - and trusted I could use Rembrandt similar hues to replace any I used up. So why not get an actual set of Rembrandt too for convenience?</div>
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It worked. A half stick set this size and this well thought out in palette can help anyone who paints with limited space. I cut pieces of sanded paper to size 9 x 12" or smaller, painted on Uart and in my pastel journal as well as on the Aquabee and Canson Mi-Tientes pads.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rXdin36BN6g/VFQlc9qoRrI/AAAAAAAAHww/ALOs9yNA3cM/s1600/10-23-2014%2BPacific%2BWave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rXdin36BN6g/VFQlc9qoRrI/AAAAAAAAHww/ALOs9yNA3cM/s1600/10-23-2014%2BPacific%2BWave.jpg" height="236" width="320" /></a></div>
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Pacific Wave, 5" x 7"</div>
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Uart 600 grit sanded paper, Rembrandt pastels</div>
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On sanded paper I got all those textures and varied effects entirely using this set of half sticks. The best seascape I've done in my life happened on impulse when I saw a reference that brought back memories of the Pacific coast. I was able to get tiny ditails of spray, heavy impasto strokes in the foam, linear marks, side strokes, scumbling, layering, stick-mixing, every technique I know worked in that quite small space with these pastels.</div>
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Pigment rich, consistent in texture, reasonably priced and well organized for hue and value, these are the first artist grade pastels I would recommend for any beginner. I'd also recommend a 24+ color set of hard pastels for sketching and underpainting and a 20 or larger set of Sennelier half sticks for finishing marks when you've filled the paper tooth - also to give the beginner a feel for different softness of pastels and how to use different textures. The finishing ones don't need a full palette, they need darks and lights and some accent colors. </div>
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Some beginners get confused at a very large range and choke on making so many choices. Others like me thrive on a big range and love having many choices available. This has all the necessary colors and some very useful convenience colors. Thanks to Charlotte Herczfeld, I think of neutrals as convenience colors now but there are many useful ones and good earths in this range.</div>
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The rich textures of these pastels are very different from the standard super soft student grade pastels. Uncrushed pigment crystals shine if you don't finger blend them, soft gradients can be achieved by stick blending as well as finger blending. You can learn on these - and then rely on them over the long run, building up earlier layers and using more expensive pastels in final layers. </div>
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One warning for Rembrandt buyers. The first time you try to make a side stroke with a half stick or peel the wrapper off a full stick, you may find it hard to make a mark at all. There is a "coating" on the outside of the sticks. The tips don't always have it or it comes off on the first mark, but it can be very frustrating. Sand that off with a sandpaper paddle. Just the kind you'd use to sharpen pastel pencils or soft graphite leads. It doesn't take much to remove it. I was swiping it off on the borders of paintings on sanded paper or even scrubbing through it on margins of regular paper to get a smooth plane to paint with because that coating also kept my fingers relatively clean. Your choice to sand it all off or just sand down one side to paint with.</div>
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I think the "coating" comes as a side effect of the extrusion process, compacting the paste as it goes through the tube before it dries. It's there on almost all colors, it's not a big deal to remove and no great loss of pigment. Just be aware of that and don't think yours are defective if it occurs.</div>
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The box is excellent - a sturdy heavy cardboard box in black with the R logo swashing across it gloss on matte, very elegant, and a cardboard sleeve that keeps the box firmly closed. The lid flips over and slides under the bottom with the top tray in it and a little pamphlet about the product with the entire color range listed by color number is included. The cardboard sleeve includes tiny swatches with color number for every pastel included in the set. Very useful for reordering or for customizing - if you'd rather change out several colors for those you use more often, it's not difficult to get some full sticks from open stock and just store the displaced extras and other halves elsewhere in your studio. Open stock usually comes in padded small boxes good for storage or they can go in a mixed brands box for general use.</div>
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I seriously recommend 60 half stick Rembrandts as a plein air set, the palette is well balanced for any climate I've lived or subject I might run across. If I want to paint a woman on the park bench, the flowering bushes in front of the fountain, a colorful city street here in San Francisco or a bunch of palms near the ocean, I can do it. I could manage a decent Southwestern painting with this range. For a general use palette it is superb. I can't praise it enough.</div>
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But then, my varied subjects for the past few weeks are why I can say that. In convenience, it really does matter what colors go into the small portable sets - sometimes so much they blow all the rest out of the way!</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XBej03G6yB0/VFQo9q0Lm_I/AAAAAAAAHw8/ILIYngN0v5E/s1600/10-17-2014%2BSunset%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XBej03G6yB0/VFQo9q0Lm_I/AAAAAAAAHw8/ILIYngN0v5E/s1600/10-17-2014%2BSunset%2B2.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
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Autumn Sunset 5" x 7"</div>
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Rembrandt on Canson Mi-Tientes orange paper smooth side</div>
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I was able to get the impression of frost on the fields in that little sunset and the fine details of those receding distant trees. Not just the bright sunset colors I wanted but the subtler hues on the land were easy with very little layering since I was doing it on unsanded paper.</div>
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These are the ones to learn on and the set to have with if you feel like painting outdoors. If you don't want to put together a custom plein air set with multiple brands in a Guerrilla Painter pastels tray box and build a personal palette, you'll still get good use out of these and be able to start right away. The beginner's artist grade pastel is just what Charlotte Herczfeld said: a good workhorse.</div>
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We go off in many different directions but this old friend keeps on being a good friend. Also for beginners - 60 is a good manageable number. Bigger palettes are easier but smaller palettes may prove difficult or specific to subject, 60 will usually be about right for general use. </div>
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Yes, I'd buy more of these and I'd even get the full range along with my W&N set given more studio space. This old friend still pulls through and opens up so many possibilities. Besides, I still have vintage colors to add to it.</div>
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robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-62154226305698754532014-10-23T09:30:00.000-07:002014-10-23T09:30:59.174-07:00Stillman and Birn Zeta Journal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkIgmsWR0RQ/VEklhI3OkCI/AAAAAAAAHsg/5PU1aVHWQzY/s1600/9-10-2014%2BTrees%2Blife%2Bpen-watercolor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SkIgmsWR0RQ/VEklhI3OkCI/AAAAAAAAHsg/5PU1aVHWQzY/s1600/9-10-2014%2BTrees%2Blife%2Bpen-watercolor.jpg" height="320" width="319" /></a></div>
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Stillman and Birn have done it again! I love their journals. All of them have great paper, good bindings, archival quality and spectacular performance. The newest S&B journal is no exception. It's a dream come true for anyone who wants to paint and draw in the style of Claudia Nice. This journal is perfect for pen and watercolor.<br />
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Stillman & Birn Zeta paper is as heavy as the Beta and Delta. It's pure natural white 180lb smooth paper. A little less absorbent than the Rough paper, its smooth hot press surface gives absolute control of pen textures. The above illustration is a page of life drawings in pen and watercolor from my 7" square wire bound Zeta journal. Zeta comes in both wire bound and hardbound versions, the hardbound Zeta has the fold-flat binding that allows perfect two-page spreads if you're fonder of a hard binding. But I still like the simplicity of a wire binding and the 7" square journal is a convenient size for me to carry with a pan set of watercolors for life drawing excursions.<br />
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I first tried out my Zeta with a pure pen page, lots of text and some pen drawings. I was thrilled with the level of control it gave me. The paper is gorgeous and takes pen textures perfectly. I penciled first and it does have enough tooth to allow delicate graphite values, it also erased clean without destroying the texture at all using a kneaded eraser and a white vinyl eraser. I've taken to penciling every page in it because this heavy, elegant paper gives precision to my pen drawing and allows the best of fine details to come through exactly as intended.<br />
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On color pages, the effects are a little different. Some artists find them disappointing, because the paper is naturally a bit less absorbent than cold press or rough paper. The smooth plate texture will let your paint float and puddle on the surface longer than it would on a rougher paper. That's something to get used to, but it's nowhere near as difficult as painting on Yupo. Watercolor on the Zeta paper takes a little more thought and planning to get your best effects with it. The apple in my first illustration was painted with a nearly dry brush effect. Strokes will be distinct and mingling takes carefully controlling water quantity and tilt of the journal. So it takes a bit of skill to get exactly the effects you want on the Zeta, but it's well worth it.<br />
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The more often I paint in my Zeta journal, the easier it is to get used to the paper's texture and control wet in wet applications. The petals of the top flowers were painted wet in wet within the paper area. I started with a medium-light wash of Rose per petal, kept the edges to the pen lines and then charged in more Rose where the shaded areas were on my photo reference (my own photo) and where I'd accented with pen shading. In the leaves I washed the entire area and then charged in some stronger green, waited for a dry area to get some darker details, played with the values. It may take a little practice to gain control of your watercolor on Zeta paper but the color and values will come up strong and bright on it.<br />
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A little goes a long way. Notice that in both pen watercolor pages, the darks come out really dark, the brights come out really bright. The same smooth texture that makes it difficult to control wet in wet applications also keeps more of the pigment on the surface, so a little watercolor goes a long way in a Zeta.<br />
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I would recommend if you've never used hot press watercolor before, to start with the last page of your Zeta journal and make a color chart of your watercolors. Mark off shapes or squares with a waterproof ink pen like a Pigma Micron (my favorite waterproof technical pen) and then draw out a shaded patch ranging from very light to its deepest tone for each color. This will also give a sense of how much water to have on the brush while painting.<br />
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I used a Niji waterbrush for most of these paintings but have also done some with a squirrel mop along with artist grade watercolors.<br />
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This page, painted with the squirrel mop, gave me much more control of the amount of water in each application. I did some objects and portions of objects wet in wet, the first layers on the marble and shell were wet in wet, also some areas of the rock and feather. Later I overlaid color with a damp brush into damp areas, finally some last details were with a nearly dry brush effect on thoroughly dry paper. I got a variety of soft and hard edges on this page with the squirrel mop and a finer point to the mop for getting into details than with the Niji water brush. So I would seriously recommend trying different brushes with your Zeta journal to discover what techniques best suit your work.<br />
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The 180lb paper is so heavy that even the wettest areas did not distort the paper or create problems on the other side. On the first demo page, the apple dried with a slight dip in the page on the previous side which was entirely pen work, but none of the ink lines ran because I was using a brush tip Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen for the sketches on that side. If you put a very loose, heavy application of water there will be a little cockling, this is true for any paper. But it was very minimal and didn't bring any color through at all, as happened in other journals where I had heavy watercolor applications on one side that carried color through to the other.<br />
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I don't do many marker paintings but I'm pretty sure this paper will perform well with markers, the Pitt Artist Pens deliver about as much liquid as most alcohol based markers and I had no trouble with dark heavy applications going through or distorting after they went on. There was no distortion on the watercolor side of this page when I went back and did the apple, more that the water seeped through to slightly distort the surface under the can of spray fixative sketch.<br />
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Stamping, collage, glitter, special effects and Pan Pastels would all work fine on a Zeta journal, though with its hot press surface you probably won't be able to layer much with Pan Pastels. Use Pan Pastels on this more as an accent and definitely put some fixative over it if you want to layer the Pans. You might have some trouble getting opaque layering with Pans because of its smoothness. For pastels and Pan Pastels my favorite journal is the Beta, right now I've turned my current Stillman & Birn Beta journal into a Pastel Journal with Art Spectrum Multimedia (Colourfix) primer on some of its pages - and not on others, the rough surface of the Beta paper holds pastels and Pan Pastels better than most unsanded pastel papers.<br />
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However, a few accents over watercolor such as a dab of Pearlescent Pan Pastel or Metallic Pan Pastel could definitely work, I'd still try multimedia paintings in a Zeta. I might specifically use a sanded primer like AS Multimedia or Golden Pumice Gel if I wanted a pastel passage in a Zeta journal especially. Texture can be created where the paper doesn't have it. Acrylics and inks should work fine in this journal with the same way that watercolor adheres. The paper is very good at holding paint once it's dried!<br />
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I wholeheartedly recommend the Stillman & Birn Zeta journal, especially for pen drawing and pen/watercolor painting. Other multimedia and different mediums may work well or poorly depending on how well those mediums behave on a smooth surface. Zeta paper is smooth but absorbent, a thousand times better than Yupo and still has the Yupo Effect of brightening watercolor applications!<br />
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When you're feeling detail fussy and a super-fine pen point is calling to you, whether that's a crowquill, a .005 Pigma Micron or even a 6x0 Rapidograph technical pen, reach for a Zeta journal. You won't regret it! Watercolors will float on the surface, giving extra strength and brightness to your wet washes. With watersoluble colored pencils and other colored pencils, treat it as smooth paper. Think detail and careful applications. That's what the Zeta is all about.<br />
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I recommend Zeta for all water media with that caveat - it's smooth and it won't act like anything else without a primer or some other way to rough up a section. Its greatest strength is the clean, perfect pen line and minute detail, fantastic control of small details and strokes. Definitely the pen perfectionist's journal!robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-10285570447538954832014-10-04T10:31:00.001-07:002014-10-04T10:31:29.845-07:00Pearlescent Pan Pastels and MediumsThe folks at Pan Pastels are at it again with gorgeous new products! Of course I had to get the full set of Pearlescent Pan Pastels in a tray with some new tools, couldn't resist a few new tools along the way, and all five Mediums at Dick Blick. That's usually where I get my supplies. Mediums came in a stack of five Pans with Colorless Blender, White coarse and fine pearlescent medium and Black coarse and fine pearlescent medium.<br />
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Last month's Blick swag</div>
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includes Pearlescent Pan Pastels and five Mediums stack</div>
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The first day I got my swag, of course I had to try out these new Pans! So I used my Stillman & Birn Beta journal, which with or without sanded primer is my pastel journal, to paint a pearl using all the Mediums and all the Pearlescent colors. These Pearlescents come out as light as tints of their spectrum colors, they are convenience colors with hue and Fine Pearlescent White Medium. Mixing the black Pearlescent Mediums creates a shade with a hue.</div>
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Pearl in Pearlescent Pan Pastels and Mediums</div>
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7" square on 180lb rough white watercolor paper.</div>
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Oh these Pearlescent Pan Pastels performed so beautifully! I did the background around the sphere with red and violet Pan Pastel, then swept Coarse Black Pearlescent Medium into it at the top and shaded through to Fine Pearlescent Black Medium at the base, using a gradient of value and texture to flatten the dark reddish glittering cloth under the pearl. Within the pearl, I used Fine White Pearlescent Medium and all six Pearlescent Colors to shade it to the lights and darks of a pearl I had on my desk to model - much smaller than the painting, the real one was only 1/4" across. To get the deepest darks I swept a little Fine Black Pearlescent Medium mixed with Blue Pearlescent Pan Pastel across it over a heavy layered application of the others, so it blended nicely and worked as a "black" to bring it down to medium value shimmering gray.</div>
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The glitter effect of Coarse Pearlescent Medium is visible at the top where light catches on what looks like mica flecks - it's a gorgeous effect and sparkles wonderfully in person. The photo captures it but the iridescence is much more visible in person. I swiped a touch of Coarse White into the lightest highlight on the pearl and blended it in too. Beautiful and subtle effect. </div>
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Art journal artists take note, these mediums mix with any Pan Pastels you already have and will modify the colors the way white or black do, but with a shimmering zing. Wonderful special effects. I used them again today in a skyscape to see how they'd work in a different setting - and I am very happy with the luminescent sky in this painting.</div>
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Shimmering Dawn Skyscape</div>
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8" x 10" horizontal</div>
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Aquabee Hemp Draw multimedia paper</div>
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Photo reference by DAK723 on WetCanvas.com for </div>
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Oct. 2014 Pastel Spotlight Challenge</div>
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Pearlescent Pan Pastels have the value of tints in six spectrum colors. They are convenience colors, just as the Tints are - but oh they are so convenient! It was very easy to get a luminous sky effect sweeping hue after hue into the shapes of the clouds, building back and forth and blending on the paper with light applications.</div>
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The foreground is entirely in regular Pan Pastels, trees in Deep Dark green shade and land in Violet with green, violet and blue Tints over it. The violet is a bit stronger in the photo because I adjusted the color to make the sky read true, its effect in real life is closer to a grayed green with violet undertones and shadows except on the left where it's a field of lavender. </div>
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Definitely pick these up if you enjoy using Pan Pastels. If you've never tried Pan Pastels before and enjoy Art Journaling, the Pearlescent Pans set might be a fun starter to decorate pages with swift pearlized color easily controlled. Definitely get the tray set if you do, since that includes good tools to get you started and a tray to use them easily. The Pans trays are very convenient too, I put my four Mediums in with the Pearlescent colors. Stand by for a review of the Colorless Blender. I still need to see how well that works, if it's transparent or opaque, if extending colors with it lightens them or just lets the surface color show through. I might try it on black mat board for that experiment.</div>
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If you just want the effect and already have some Pans, the Mediums set of five is a good bargain. You can mix all six Pearlescent colors yourself with a Sofft sponge and of course get Pearlescent Shades using the black Mediums. Both of these products are well worth the money. Yay, I have a full range of Pan Pastels again!</div>
robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-79038056964737956022013-12-29T20:49:00.001-08:002013-12-29T20:58:15.061-08:00Metallic Pan Pastels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Metallic Pan Pastels are the latest invention from Colorfin LLC, makers of Pan Pastels. The range was originally 60 colors, then expanded to 80 with 20 more useful Deep Dark Shades. Pan Pastels are soft pastels that handle like paint. They come in sturdy plastic compacts and are applied with Sofft micropore sponge tools, either knives or sponges shaped to work like different paintbrush styles. I've got the full range, both sizes of trays, a good assortment of tools and found out which my favorite tools are.<br />
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I was thrilled to get a pack of four Metallic Pan Pastel colors to try. Metallic Pan Pastels are available now everywhere Pan Pastels can be found, individually or in two sets of 3 or a full set of 6 colors. The two lightest Metallic Pan Pastels, Silver and Light Rich Gold, are each available in one of the sets of 3. Like all the Pan Pastels, they are a little less expensive in sets than individually. If you only get one, Silver would be the mixer handling most like white or light gray, Light Gold more like a bright light yellow. But if you can, get the set of 6 - it's a little more at first but you'll want the deeper Rich Gold, Bronze, Copper and Pewter hues. Pewter is not a dull grayish product but a shimmering rich deep shiny Pewter. The photo doesn't convey the photos that well compared to their shimmery iridescence in person.<br />
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My first expectation was that they should handle exactly like the other colors. No matter what artist pigments go into the other colors of Pan Pastels, the texture of the product is the same in every color.<br />
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<b>Yes, that's how they work. These are exactly like all the other Pan Pastels. Just shimmery metallic.</b><br />
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That this is a huge big deal only made sense to me at time of writing.<br />
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I'm not sure readers who aren't serious artists appreciate just how difficult that was for them to invent. Pigments have different qualities. They weigh different, they feel different, they clump different, they're transparent and opaque, for the makers of Pans to get 20 pure clean colors all with exactly the same texture, feel and handling qualities is darn near a miracle. I think of it in relation to other pastels or paint and I'm boggled. Yet I trusted them to do exactly the same thing with Metallic Pan Pastels. Same feel, some texture, same thickness when it goes on, same opacity, mixability, everything.<br />
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To be friendly to them, I started off my test with my favorite surface for Pan Pastels, Clairefontaine PastelMat. This coated pastel card is soft and smooth, clings to pigment like the sticky side of glue and lets me layer as much Pan Pastel as I want. Colors don't mix without a good heavy layer but it's not hard to blend once there's enough color on - so hard edges are easy to get, mistakes easy to lift and mixing on the painting as easy as painting in oils. Painting with Pan Pastels has a little in common with oils except that it's actually dry, it's always workable and much smoother. It's hard to get textured brushstrokes in it, the pigment goes down flat and texture is created by adding new strokes or using sticks for texture accents.<br />
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Despite the color it looks in the photo, that's Pewter Metallic Pan Pastel on a Maize color card - a bright sunny warm yellow something like a strong tint of Yellow Ochre with a big dose of Cadmium Yellow Medium to jazz it up. I sketched the composition and subject with a dark green Col-Erase pencil for easy erasing and used a Vanish eraser to correct the lines. Shown is a wedge sponge on the bottom, at the bottom of the next photo I showed the eraser - it's a great eraser. Nice, soft, clean and leaves no residue.<br />
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I decided to do a stylized water rendering, just irregular ripple shapes in two or three different contrasting hues of the same value. That'd push the background back while giving it some nice variegation and most of all give my main subject a Shiny Metallic Background - as metallic as if I did this on variegated metallic card. Something closer to Christmas card fancy than impressionist depth. If I'd meant depth, I'd have started playing with the values too and shaded it top to bottom to flatten it into a horizontal plane. So far so good. The value of Pewter is a nice middle value, maybe 6 or 7 if your scale has 10 for black. (I've seen value scales run both ways.)<br />
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There's my pretty variegated background! I blended some of the edges to softness to see how the colors mixed, used Copper, a touch of Bronze here and there and Rich Gold for what became a lovely group of Metallic Primaries. Those three colors together are a palette! Start shading them up with Titanium White and down with Black and you will have a muted spectrum of metallic color before you add in any other colors. Pewter is not actually as blue as it looks in this photo because the light from my light well was very bluish sky light - it's a light well and the sun was not directly coming down it so it had a heavy blue cast canceling out the Maize and making the neutral gray Pewter look very blue. But even in the electric incandescent light of my room, those Pewter areas look blue across the room by color contrast with the Copper and Rich Gold.<br />
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You get something like the Zorn Palette where black tints can be substituted for all the blue mixes using Pewter and Silver as your cool colors. So in this abstract watery background, I've got primaries and I could paint anything I wanted in a metallic varied-metals icon style. Like all metallic mediums, Metallic Pan Pastels create a glittering surface of matte metal. They look like you took polished metal and gave it a matte surface. It will not create Chrome Effects or burnish to looking shiny and chromelike.<br />
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You do those by shading it up with White and down with Black. The best way to get shiny metal effects with the added shimmer of metallic color is to treat it as the value it is. Ignore that it's a metallic pigment and use it for what color it is, then create distorted reflections of everything around the Shiny Thing. I would not necessarily choose Metallic Pan Pastels to render a shiny red Christmas ball ornament because I might get truer realism using Permanent Red as a base and shading, tinting and modifying it with all the other colors in the scene including the hue of the lights on it. I will be tackling this in a lesson in Rob's Art Lessons soon, paint a shiny metallic object using Metallic Pan Pastels. Meanwhile, what I have is exactly what I intended - something that looks like a metallic card for a background to my duck.<br />
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So let's paint the duck! I used 10 Painters Colors for him, plus 5 Deep Dark Shades and 5 Tints. This is what I keep for a field set in two 10 color trays, what I use to paint when I don't have the table space to spread out all four 20 color trays at once. 10 Painters is a great starter for using Pan Pastels if you haven't tried them before - it has all the essential mixing colors and several good convenience colors, it's comparable to your 10 or 12 color basic watercolors set for plein air. 20 Painters gives you all the pigments. Tints, Shades and Deep Darks are convenience colors and I love having the Deep Dark Shades for sketching colors because they're like using tinted charcoal on white sketchbook paper.<br />
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He was my big test. I used just the Painters colors on his beak, white band and fluffy chest and most of his wings, was painting him basically as a duck from a photo reference on WetCanvas posted by DAK720 for the December "Spotlight" challenge in the Pastels forum. What drew me to him as a subject was his shimmering iridescent green head. I knew I could get an added punch to that iridescence using Metallic Pan Pastels and I wanted to see how well the colors mixed with other Pan Pastels. Could I get Metallic Green by mixing Rich Gold with Pthalo Green and Ultramarine Blue?<br />
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Yes. I sure did. I used Violet, Pthalo Green and a little Ultramarine Deep Dark on the shadow side of his head - sketched it in with Deep Dark and touches of Deep Dark Violet, then laid in the color. Did the light side with Pthalo Green and Yellow Ochre to lighten and yellow it, made a tint up near the top where the sun was hitting his head with a little White. I got all my values and hues right before I started in with Rich Gold. I was satisfied with him, he looked natural and some Violet in the shadows gave the green enough punch to create an effect of iridescence. I'd used Violet Deep Dark with White over it in his chest and gotten that difficult grayish lavender fluffiness just right. I liked my duck.<br />
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Pow, when I started bringing in the Rich Gold into the sunlit areas first I was stunned at what it did. The sparkle blended into the green and vanished, blended as if I'd brought in more Yellow Ochre. He'd be a touch more shiny if I hadn't used the Yellow Ochre at all but stuck with the Rich Gold throughout, but I built up a final layer and got him to a shimmering iridescence. Shadow side I used Ultramarine Blue with Rich Gold to balance it out closer to the cool Pthalo blue of the main tone and it didn't lose its intensity at all. you can see individual sparkles in the large version of the photo.<br />
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What this looks like on my wall is spectacular. It looks shimmering metalic, that addition of Rich Gold into the green head was just enough to unify the painting. I used a little swipe of Rich Gold and background color into his wing to create a splash of metallic accent to tie it all together at the end. The painting would work as a Christmas card though I think I'd need some kind of specialty printer to create the metallic prints! It'd take special inks - or it'd take doing a hand painted design, which might be a whole lot easier.<br />
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Whether you're a professional, a leisure painter, a crafter or art journaler, Metallic Pan Pastels have a good place in your palette. They perform like all other Pan Pastels, they're archival artist grade materials and will bring that metallic shimmer to anything you paint with them. Add black and white for a Metallic Zorn palette and try doing a Christmas landscape. I purchased the other two Metallic Pans when I replaced some lost supplies and the Light Rich Gold is exactly the hue of the 24kt Gold Dot available from Jerry's Artarama - that is, Light Rich Gold is precisely the hue of real gold ground to a pigment. Silver is very bright and looks like the Silver Dot, so Gold and Silver accents in icon style paintings or fancy medieval calligraphy are the true hues of precious metals.<br />
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Copper is extremely bright pinkish-red copper. Bronze is a very bright bronze, polished bronze warmer than Rich Gold and sitting between the two as a hue - Rich Gold is a very bright cheery brass color. So you can play around with these different metals and their values, shade up a bit with Light Rich Gold and Silver before getting to White and get a stronger "metallic chrome" effect that way. I love the color of the Copper and will be having loads of fun with that painting still lifes - just be sure to shade it with the right other pigments to get the real hues and values of your subject. But that's a topic for another article!<br />
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Five thumbs up for Metallic Pan Pastels. The range on one of my all time favorite mediums just expanded. Pan Pastels are insanely versatile, clean, handy, powerful, convenient and archival. Metallic ones now make it possible to get lively, whimsical and dramatic with them. Happy Holidays!<br />
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PS -- Sorry about my absence of over a year. This happened due to health problems and some money trouble that made my health problems worse. Since then I've gotten things sorted out and my life is back on track, better than ever. Slowly I'm putting together my habits again. Watch for more reviews in 2013 - I'll start by trying for monthly updates and build up from there!robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-826595876832479652012-05-22T15:06:00.000-07:002015-10-31T18:09:04.543-07:00SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics are a great choice for a beginner. All of the SoHo Urban Artist products so far advertise artist grade quality at student grade prices. I received the 24 color Value Set of 21ml tubes for review. Normal price is $19.99 at Jerry's Artarama, currently the set is on sale for $12.99 - so they really mean it. These are definitely student grade prices.<br />
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I'm happy to report that the quality of the paint is pretty good - incredible at those prices. It's not as runny as some other bargain brand acrylics that I've tried in the past. The colors are consistent, the named hues like Cadmium Yellow Medium are a good match for the toxic mineral pigments they replace and they handle the same as several other brands of acrylics I've tried. Some of the pricier artist grade acrylics do beat the SoHo pigment concentration, but not by so much that they're unworkable.<br />
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Mixing quality is excellent, very comparable to Liquitex. All colors are also available separately in 75ml and 250ml tubes plus 500ml jars. The 21ml small tubes in the Value Set are best for miniature painters, artists who want to try a wide variety of pigments at a very low price and plein air painters. They're handy if you want to just choose a primary triad or a half dozen colors, tuck them in your pocket and head outdoors to paint.<br />
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Like all acrylics, they dry quickly. They will mix with any brand of acrylic gloss or matte medium for glazing, while it's very easy to create washes with additional water. I haven't tried the specialty mediums like slow-dry or impasto paste mixed with these but I trust they'll behave like other acrylics if I do.<br />
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If you buy this set as an introductory set for a new painter, definitely also purchase a 75ml tube of Titanium White. There isn't an extra white tube in the 24 color Value Set - but then, there isn't in the Liquitex intro sets either. If you're thinking of gifts, Jerry's also has a Really Complete Painting Set including this 24 color set of tubes plus painting boards, brushes, table easel, gloss and gel mediums, painting knives, painting palette and plastic double dip mediums, paper palette and instructional DVD for $79.99 - the bundle set is a bargain for all the supplies included so if you want to gift a relative with a new hobby, that might be the way to go. I'd still slip in a 75ml tube of Titanium White with it so that they don't scowl at the white running out before they finish the second or third painting.<br />
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The other type of painter who might really enjoy the SoHo Urban Artist acrylics is a muralist. 500ml jars are good big supplies and the 49 color range is extensive. You can stick to a small palette of favorites or splurge and try new colors without spending a bundle - even the big jars are only $7.99 on average.<br />
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Plastic painting knives and an acrylic spray bottle are accessories available under the same brand, modestly priced and useful. Any brand of gloss or matte gel mediums should work with these for hobby projects or serious artworks. If you work on a big scale, these can be a good choice.<br />
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The lids went back on the plastic tubes easily. None of the tubes were damaged and it was very easy to remove paint clots from the threads if I left a tube a little too long before closing.<br />
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If you're interested in doing hobby projects with liquid acrylics, just add a little water to the paint when you've spread it into your palette or picnic plate. This is a good brand to experiment with one-stroke methods and other hobby projects. They're bright, they're sturdy, they'll introduce you to handling both opaque and transparent paints and of course, soap and water cleanup is standard for any acrylics.<br />
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Be sure to keep brushes moist when working with any brand of acrylic paints. If acrylic dries in your brush, it's very difficult or even impossible to remove without damaging the hairs. Rather than putting your brush hair down in your water jar, squeeze the paint out on a rag or paper towel, rinse thoroughly and lay the brush flat on a paper towel or change colors.<br />
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Acrylic paints are tougher on brush hairs than watercolors, so don't use expensive sable watercolor rounds with these. You'll find synthetic sable or stiff synthetic bristle brushes work best with heavy body acrylics depending on the effect you want. Pick up a bag of synthetic brushes in a variety of sizes and shapes if you're just starting out, experiment to find which ones suit your style best. Miniature brushes work very well with SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics.<br />
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If you're an ACEO painter, these may be a brilliant choice to start getting into acrylics. Either get some ATC blanks in acrylic paper, or cut them to size from a canvas or canva-paper pad. Acrylics work well on watercolor paper or on gessoed canvas.<br />
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My example painting is on a <a href="http://robs-art-supply-reviews.blogspot.com/2011/10/stillman-and-birn-beta-sketchbook.html" target="_blank">Stillman & Birn Beta</a> journal page, 180lb extra heavy watercolor paper, bright white. These are great acrylics for art journaling. The small tubes, strong pigments, variety of pigments and hues and their clean ease of use make them a wonderful choice. Drawings and sketches sealed with acrylic washes are waterproof, glazes and washes can also make a barrier layer for adding other media over them such as oil pastels.<br />
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I didn't gesso the journal page. Some artists do, but the sizing in the S&B Beta journal was strong enough that I didn't need to. The painting on the other side of the page was completely undisturbed - another sign that these medium-heavy body paints are a better grade than others in their price category. I have seen some pretty nasty student grade acrylics that separated, turned into goo, smelled funny when you open the tube or were so runny and thin that they might as well be washes right from the tube.<br />
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While they're not up with Daniel Smith or Winsor & Newton, these compare favorably with Liquitex and are way, way beyond anything else as cheap as they go. Good intro to a rewarding medium. Pick them up for a lark, you'll get a great range for a pocket money price. Definitely fantastic for hobbyists, students, big scale painters, sign painting, illustrators, art journals, ACEO painters and anyone else who wants to find out what acrylics can do!robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-8712604870303623702012-04-27T14:01:00.000-07:002012-04-27T14:03:26.444-07:00Henri Roche Pastels<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Henri Roche' pastels are the most expensive pastel sticks I know of. From previous experience, I know that you get what you pay for in pastels. These run about $15 to $18 a stick at The Fine Art Store online, or if you're lucky enough to live somewhere The Fine Art Store has a brick and mortar outlet. That's just unbelievable. Even the other good brands I've bought, if I spend five or six dollars for a stick I'm getting the best. So what makes Roche' pastels worth this amount of money?</div>
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Thankfully, a good friend in France who uses Roche' pastels helped me to answer that question by sending my a little box with eight pieces and one full stick (the bright gold color).</div>
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I know my personal answer. Roche' pastels are strong and bright but as lightfast as it gets. They are pure pigment hand rolled with a minimum of proprietary binder. They are incredible. The bright colors are strong!</div>
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A part of me will always love the kid pastels, the cheap student grade square blocks like Loew-Cornell where vivid fugitive dyes turn chalk into a rainbow of transcendent color. Unfortunately, grownup pastels for professional artists don't get that intense.</div>
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Except the Ultramarine piece and the red piece and gold stick, all the pure spectrum colors in my handful DO have that brilliance. They have it looking at the sticks and they have it on the paper. I can use these the way I would the cheap ones and trust my art will come through the ages as bright and gorgeous as I painted it. I've also got the same selling point that I did when I used small quantities of 24kt shell gold in watercolor or gouache paintings.</div>
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I can tell the buyer about the product and reassure them that I'm using the world's best supplies for their commission. When collectors buy something valuable they like to know they're getting luxurious materials used with brilliant craft, and that to me is a basis for honesty as a creator. So it's a fair selling point.</div>
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Now let's come to what happened after I stopped drooling at those bright little jewels in their box and actually used them. </div>
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Artist grade pastels, the more expensive they are, the more personality they have. Your basic workhorse brands, Rembrandt, Art Spectrum, Winsor & Newton, Blick Artists, all have in common that they're medium soft and will perform well using any pastel paper and most techniques. The higher up the price scale I go, the more fussy the expensive pastels get.</div>
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They have a favorite paper. They have a favorite technique. They have a quirky color range, maybe all the greens are muted or turquoise because the maker is a landscape artist who never uses pure spectrum grass green as being too garish in large quantities. Pastels at the upper price ranges become specialists and when they're used on their best substrates in their best techniques, nothing else can compare.</div>
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This is why some professional pastelists have studios with multiple giant tables holding trays with 5,000 pastels on them. It's not all about having 5,000 slightly different colors and values, though that does come into it. They may have eight different sticks that are all exactly the same hue of reddish orange. Each one will have a different texture.</div>
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Surprisingly, Roche' fits one of those categories with one other pastel - Townsend Terrages, also hand made. Roche' has pumice in the mixture.</div>
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Pumice pastels are at their best on non sanded, non coated toothy paper. The pumice rips up the paper and lets it hold more pigment. I feel like it's almost a waste using pumice pastels on sanded papers because their special effect becomes irrelevant, though I'd make exceptions for Roche' pastels when I must, absolutely must have that perfect insanely vivid color. Nonetheless, knowing pumice is in the stick, I chose a non sanded paper for my test.</div>
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The first test, I tried blending them and stick-blending them across different colors. Wow, they come off the stick so easily that I had to have a light hand using them or I'd be facing a mountain of expensive, wasted powder. Paint lightly with these! They're heavy in the hand and come off on the paper like I'm using Senneliers. They're not that soft but they respond to a gentle touch and blend beautifully.</div>
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My second test, over my areas of color I sketched a dandelion from memory to see how opaque they are. Whoohoo! Beautiful opacity. Bang, there were bright white and yellow light over the deep Ultramarine, exactly where and how I wanted it. Yes, they perform well. That layering might have been difficult with regular medium-soft pastels to that level of intense contrast. I can correct paintings with Roche' easily - so they go on the "Paramedics" list for pastel paintings. If in doubt, use a Roche' stick to make corrections. </div>
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Third test - I soaked that test sheet with fixative. I did have a cue from a friend's review of Roche' pastels. Because these were invented in the time of Degas and among his favorite pastels, they lend themselves to that technique - layering with heavy fixative use to provide tooth for the next layers. Well, I used SpectraFix so it wasn't really darkening from the fixative itself. The white of the dandelion clock did diffuse a bit, because I overdid it and actually had pools of the stuff on the paper. I wasn't sure if I'd wrecked it.</div>
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Fourth image - I waited till those puddles dried and went back. Wow. Powerful brilliant opacity and it stuck like there was nothing on the page. These photos don't do justice to the brilliance my test page has where I have it up on the wall. That particular Ultramarine is the color I fell in love with at so many museum visits. It has that screaming brilliance like a chip of sky trapped in the painting. The color swatches were not restated but did get the fixative, they're still that bright and lovely. </div>
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Roche' pastels are worth the money. Optical mixing is easy with them. Pumice lets them perform their best on non-sanded papers, as specialists I would recommend them for Finishing Pastels. Build up to them with other good artist grade pastels and use them for your final accents, or get a big sheet of good archival toothy paper and use them all the way up, spraying layers of fixative whenever you need to add more tooth. </div>
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A more detailed demonstration with Roche' pastels including paintings on different substrates is available at Charlotte Herczfeld's blog: <a href="http://charlotteherczfeld.com/blog/41361/henri-roch-pastels-a-review" target="_blank">Henri Roche' Pastels Review.</a> I'm linking to her blog for those tests on other substrates, because I don't really want to waste those precious little jewels trying them on the wrong surfaces and waste their gorgeous pigment-heavy beauty on something that is less likely to work. I feel as if mine is an adjunct to her review since I read it a couple of days before I got the box with those precious pieces.</div>
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What I found out in person is that she's 100% right about how well they perform on non sanded paper. I am going to be buying more of these, even at that price. I'm saving up for a small set and will sometimes be using that set by itself.</div>
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I can also add some things from my test. I blended with Assorted Fingers. The blended section was tons brighter than I usually get even with other artist grade pastels on non sanded paper. If you like doing finger blending, Henri Roche' does not seem to dull as much as other brands - it's the high pigment concentration that makes it work that way. Stick blending works the same, finger blending has brighter results, so when you want your finger blended passages to be more muted, use the Rembrandts etc. </div>
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They are specialists, like most of the very expensive pastels. But they are also good for casually picking up one stick while discussing a commission and saying "This one color is worth $18 a stick" and watch your buyer look at the box of all your pastels and think - <i>'okay, yeah, I can see why he is selling these paintings for hundreds or thousands of dollars.' </i></div>
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My example was using them by themselves, but I could see how beautifully the Roche' texture would work with Unisons or Mount Vision or any of my good artist grade pastels. Sometimes I like using a change in texture to pull an area of a painting forward. Henri Roche' pastels are definitely the ones to use on that 'forward" element so when I buy mine, they'll mostly be bright colors and tints.</div>
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A good way to purchase them for trying yourself are the new half stick sets the Fine Art Store carries. They're modestly priced - a 12 color full stick set is about $200 but a half stick set of 12 is only $100 and a three color half stick set is only about $30, so you can get a few of them to see for yourself if you like their feel. They are definitely something you'll love or not, and I'd seriously recommend them for final layers or painting on non sanded good papers. Tints would make another good small set because tints are such good finishing colors - in many subjects the light accents are the ones that need to go last. Like most good pastels, there is a bit of a price dip if you purchase a set versus the same number of open stock sticks. Or you can split an order with a pastelist friend and get twice as many colors by choosing colors together and breaking each stick in half once you get the box.</div>
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One paper I plan to try them on is Rising Stonehenge. It's 100% rag with a soft toothy surface. Normally I think of it as a magnificent heavy archival colored pencils surface, because it takes layers of wax and fine details so well. I'm thinking that of all-rag archival papers, the non-sized Stonehenge might be wonderful with these Henri Roche' pastels. Coated papers like ClaireFontaine PastelMat may also respond well to them, or Colourfix Suede. I wouldn't waste them on velour or sanded papers, their extra sticking quality isn't needed and less expensive pastels could give the same effects. </div>
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Townsend Terrages or Soft Form (same formula, different shape) might be a good brand to combine them with if you choose select finishing colors in Henri Roche' and fill out your collection with a broader range in another good artist grade brand. I've tested one Terrages stick and the pumice effect is very similar. Townsend Terrages are a third the price, so if you're in that price range.</div>
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Best of the best - yes, in its specialist category, and utterly gorgeous. Good reason to collect pastels in multiple brands and keep Henri Roche' sticks segregated in their own box so you don't wind up using them on the first layers of a small study instead of finishing layers on a gallery painting or commission. This is an old pastel with a grand long history like Girault, so using older techniques and substrates is their greatest strength.<br />
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I'm hooked. I won't turn into an artist who only uses this brand, but when I get rich enough for a real studio I'll dream of owning the full range $9,000 set in a rosewood box with drawers. There is something far, far beyond 525 Sennelier pastels and Henri Roche' pastels are that something. I love them and am going to be getting more of them soon - on a smaller scale, and treasure every one.</div>robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-12061958818063367412012-03-21T20:08:00.003-07:002012-03-21T20:44:37.688-07:00Masters Water-Soluble Pastel Sticks<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-czUCt20UUwQ/T2qYo1-IlWI/AAAAAAAAAyk/Fjiic1F5vXs/s1600/Masters-Pastels-48.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-czUCt20UUwQ/T2qYo1-IlWI/AAAAAAAAAyk/Fjiic1F5vXs/s400/Masters-Pastels-48.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722554103977514338" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Masters Water-Soluble Pastel Sticks</span> are a new product in an old category - semi-hard pastels. It's a little bit of a marketing trick that these inexpensive hard pastels are advertised as water-soluble when many brands of dry pastels are water soluble. Cretacolor Pastels Carre' are also watersoluble, Sennelier pastels are water soluble and most pastels will respond well to a water or alcohol wash in the first block-in layers of a pastel painting.<br /><br />What these Masters Pastels offer for a beginner is decent quality, manufacturer's claim of lightfastness and water washability at a loony low price. Available in sets of 24 and 48, Jerry's Artarama carries these inexpensive hard pastels. The sticks are short compared to most brands, 2 3/8" rectangular sticks 1/4" wide. They look thick because they're so short, but they're a standard width. The 48 color set I bought to test was only $10.99 on sale at Jerry's. <br /><br />Getting a big range for a low price is an important factor for beginners. If I was kitting up a student, these beat even the other low priced brands for getting more colors at less initial outlay. Their texture is very firm, there's a good range of darks, neutrals, skin tones and brights but very few tints or light colors. The white is going to wear down very fast and there's no ivory in the set, so I would supplement it with a Cretacolor Pastels Carre' white and perhaps an Ivory for lightening when you don't want to cool the underlying color.<br /><br />One of the other ways the manufacturer cut prices is with inexpensive yet effective packaging. The box is unbleached, uncolored heavy cardboard, designed so that each piece has an indent on two sides. That makes it easy to lift out the top tray to get at the bottom 24 colors. There's a 1/8" thick pad of dense foam over the top tray and a sheet of wax paper over the second tray to keep the pastels clean and reduce dust migrating into other colors. The sticks are packed into thick dense slotted foam inside thin black cardboard trays. A heavy cardboard lid goes over the top, then a thin cardboard sleeve goes over the box to keep the lid from flying off.<br /><br />By spending less on printing and colored pictures, the company's focused most of its resources on producing a decent product in a 6" square box sturdy enough to survive being knocked around in a backpack. I appreciate cost cutting that doesn't hurt quality and packaging that's usable in rough conditions for the life of the product.<br /><br />I tested these over a washed Inktense underpainting. I was very pleased with how they performed. Similar to other hard pastels, they have a firm texture, blend well and mix easily once blended with fingers or sticks.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cGoZeCTPYYc/T2qYoptLbpI/AAAAAAAAAyU/Qgr2adHQKqg/s1600/3-17-2012-2-pears-done-with-masters-pastels.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 316px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cGoZeCTPYYc/T2qYoptLbpI/AAAAAAAAAyU/Qgr2adHQKqg/s400/3-17-2012-2-pears-done-with-masters-pastels.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722554100685172370" /></a><br /><br />Of course that didn't tell me much about the product's big claim - that these sticks are water soluble. I decided to see how well they'd dissolve with another pears study. I deliberately scribbled loosely with distinct marks to see how well a good scrubbing would dissolve those marks.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FvUaY62woBc/T2qYobAanbI/AAAAAAAAAyI/uhgw8wAwqlA/s1600/3-21-2012-Pears-Masters-Pastels-Dry-Start.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 283px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FvUaY62woBc/T2qYobAanbI/AAAAAAAAAyI/uhgw8wAwqlA/s400/3-21-2012-Pears-Masters-Pastels-Dry-Start.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722554096739327410" /></a><br /><br />So far, so good. They went on well over bare paper with good strong color. If I pressed hard I got strong distinct marks, just dragging the sticks lightly over the rough cream paper of my <a href="http://www.robs-art-supply-reviews.blogspot.com/2011/07/stillman-and-birn-delta-series.html">Stillman & Birn Delta</a> journal produced good broken color.<br /><br />Using a water brush, I scrubbed hard at all the marks, swirling the water around to dissolve everything as well as I could. I was happy with the results. Washing the Masters Pastels is as easy as washing any other water soluble pastel. They dissolve easily and didn't leave irritating specks of undissolved pastel or deep marks that didn't come up. If I wanted a lighter sketch and wash technique I would have to wash carefully to leave linear marks or redefine them by drawing into the wet area.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cepEzHYHY8U/T2qYoXKGCWI/AAAAAAAAAx8/l49No5n2nMQ/s1600/3-21-2012-Pears-Masters-Pastels-Washed.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 274px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cepEzHYHY8U/T2qYoXKGCWI/AAAAAAAAAx8/l49No5n2nMQ/s400/3-21-2012-Pears-Masters-Pastels-Washed.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722554095706179938" /></a><br /><br />Then I finished my test painting working over the washed pears and background with the same Masters pastels. Just as with the Inktense underpainting, they covered easily and blended well. This time instead of the finger blending I used in some areas of the first test, I blended the background and pink covered table with the white stick to lighten my earlier scribbled marks. I used some complementary colors to tone the russet pear and the very bright green pear, mixing a mid-green with the lemon yellow to get the light yellow-green that wasn't in the set.<br /><br />They do mix well enough to make up for any essential hues not in the set. There's no peach skin highlight stick, but white over any of the sanguine or russet colors will give a good skin highlight. Stick-blending and finger blending both work well. Colors are reasonably opaque, responding like other semi-hard and hard pastels.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vey3X3jceDw/T2qYoITef9I/AAAAAAAAAx0/FgsXDiNoHng/s1600/3-21-2012-Pears-Masters-Pastels-Finish.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vey3X3jceDw/T2qYoITef9I/AAAAAAAAAx0/FgsXDiNoHng/s400/3-21-2012-Pears-Masters-Pastels-Finish.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722554091719000018" /></a><br /><br />My conclusion: Masters Water-Soluble Pastel Sticks are a good starter set for anyone thinking of trying soft pastels. These plus a 64 color <a href="http://www.robs-art-supply-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/09/mungyo-gallery-soft-pastels.html">Mungyo Gallery Standard Half-Sticks</a> set will give a beginner a good range of colors plus a combination of firm and soft textures. When the paper tooth fills, switch to the Standard Half Sticks to add final details and accents. Working soft over hard extends how many layers you can use on non-sanded paper.<br /><br />When you're ready to move up to using sanded and coated pastel papers and surfaces, consider buying a more expensive range of semi-hard pastels such as Mungyo, Richeson, Cretacolor, Sanford NuPastel or even the wonderful but expensive Faber-Castell Polychromos. However, even experts may benefit from having cheap and copious sketch supplies at a loony cheap price. There's something inspiring about not having to worry about cost even if you have to replace the whole set to get an extra white. It's easy to let yourself go and play like a kid.robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-44077696107006850942012-03-14T13:37:00.003-07:002012-03-14T14:17:11.367-07:00Girault Pastels For Great Details<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-63glLIA5LZY/T2ECFzG-sAI/AAAAAAAAAxU/TUOdbgkroK0/s1600/Girault-Landscape-Plus-Two.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-63glLIA5LZY/T2ECFzG-sAI/AAAAAAAAAxU/TUOdbgkroK0/s400/Girault-Landscape-Plus-Two.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719855300379324418" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Girault pastels,</span> available at Jerry's Artarama, Dakota Pastels and The Fine Art Store online, are one of the more interesting premium artist grade brands. Available in a range of 300 including a good wood box full range set, they are strong in neutrals and muted colors. <br /><br />Packaging is bare bone efficiency. A long narrow corrugated cardboard box is contained in a sturdy corrugated cardboard outer sleeve. Inside, the top flips up without tucking into the box and the pastels are protected by a half inch thick piece of sturdy foam, while each stick is nestled in a slotted foam layer with another thick foam piece under them. A small color printed example painting sitting on an easel showing the full range occupies the middle of the outer sleeve but that's all Girault spends on fancy printing. What you're paying for with the price is high pigment density, consistent high quality, unique proprietary colors and a special texture unlike all other pastels.<br /><br />The portrait range and greens in Girault pastels are wonderful, also the darks have a beautiful rich variety of hues. Spectrum brights are relatively few but have good tints and shades, the Girault range is strongest in interesting combination colors like the Violet to Yellow range of hues with increasing amounts of yellow. They come in a variety of specialized sets of 25 or 50 plus open stock and the full range wood box set. Price is fairly high, manufacturer's suggested retail price is $6.48 per stick but of course they're marked down online due to lower overhead. <br /><br />Friends often described them as combining the best qualities of soft and hard pastels in one stick. Firm enough to get details, soft enough to put them over heavy layers of pastel and everyone who's tried them loved them for a unique texture. I finally bought a 25 color Landscape set from Jerry's Artarama and added two extra sticks, Madder Carmine 380 and Purple VIolet 323 because those hues aren't included in the 25 color Landscape set. A red and a violet are in the 50 Landscape set.<br /><br />I find violet to be essential in landscapes. Nothing else balances warm yellow greens as well in the shadows of foliage masses or as patches of flowers in green fields. Purple Violet turned out to be more reddish than I expected from the online swatch and both sticks were less intense than I expected. However, some intense greens, yellows and oranges are in the set box so I could simply have chosen the wrong red and purple for what I wanted. A couple of bluer violets looked very intense on the Fine Art Store swatch page and so did a couple of warm reds and Carmine without the madder. <br /><br />I'll definitely look into expanding my collection from open stock because these are beautiful pastels. As usual, the higher priced pastel brands are cost effective if you like them and not if you don't. Lower priced artist grade pastels have a uniform quality, accept most surfaces, work similar to each other and are good "Workhorse" pastels. They're what I recommend to beginners along with a Super Soft half stick set and some hard pastels. <br /><br />Girault pastels don't fit any of my usual categories. They aren't Hard/Semi-Hard, Medium Soft, Super Soft or Hand-Rolled in texture. They're exactly what my friends said they were - they combine the qualities of Hard pastels and Medium-Soft pastels in one dense, heavily pigmented solid round stick. I get better details with these pastels than I do with Hard or Semi-Hard pastels. If it weren't for relative price I'd consider using these instead of hard pastels entirely. They stand alone in this regard.<br /><br />Small details go over heavy layers of other colors well. The sticks are beautifully opaque. When I placed eye highlights and bright white whiskers on the cat below, they shined out bright as if she was alive in my lap. Yet by varying pressure and gently using the stick as a blender, I was able to lighten hues that were too dark.<br /><br />Various areas of Kokomoko's fur were primarily the hue of the Brown Black stick but much lighter. So I varied her body with other earth colors but went over pale areas carefully with the Brown Black going lightly. A blending stroke or two later, her light patches had those areas of "Pale Brown Black."<br /><br />Girault Pastels are wonderfully expressive. Fine lines, calligraphic lines, broken color, blending, scumbling, filling in, smudging - the sticks did everything I wanted them to. Many artists who like Girault pastels use only Girault pastels since they are so versatile. They'd wear down faster on sanded or heavily sanded paper of course, but layer beautifully on PastelMat, a smooth coated paper well suited to detail work.<br /><br />Both sketchy drawing effects and broad painterly strokes are possible with the same stick. The amazing part of this is those clean expressive thin lines and delicate small dots I could produce with them. They layer like the softer pastels - in some areas they layered a bit like Senneliers, eliminating the need to add Super Soft pastels to your palette. <br /><br />If you want to try Giraults on a smaller budget than purchasing a set, consider buying a white stick and a dark stick in a drawing color like any of the browns, russet, sanguine or other deep darks including black and several deep blues. Sketching on mid-tone paper and blending the dark and white over each other will mix the colors perfectly with the right pressure. With a different speed and pressure, broken color can go over the other color without disturbing it.<br /><br />An advantage of good mixing and compact size is that you can get by with a smaller palette of Girault pastels than many other brands. Select your colors carefully if you want spectrum brights though, since the brand's range is strongest in subtle muted colors and variations. Johannes Vloothuis recommends a "martini olive" green in landscapes - you will find more than one tint and more than one variation of martini olive hues in the Girault greens. If you love foliage and water, you'll have what you need. Set prices give a small but reasonable discount on price per stick.<br /><br />I will definitely be getting an extra white stick because Girault white is so opaque and so good at laying delicate whiskers over layers of other pastels. Cat whiskers go on last and I've used pastel pencils, broken stick edges, hard pastels and even Pan Pastels in the search for the Perfect Whisker Stick. I've found it in Giraults. I'll definitely be getting an extra black for the dark-whiskered animals and expanding my range because by themselves or with other pastels, Girault has claimed its own unique, necessary space in my workbox.<br /><br />If the white does perfect cat whiskers, the bright cadmium yellow could do stamens and pistils in flowers. The green could dance around the edges of ivy with curling tiny tendrils or the shadow side of rounded curling tendrils. Blue glass marbles and the reflection of an entire room in a living eye will demand other colors. Girault pastels have taken the lead as the most impressive Detail pastel I own. <br /><br />This short range may become a good plein air set because the box is sturdy and compact. The pastels are so versatile I could grab this and a pad of Bogus paper or sketchbook for anything I want to draw outdoors - and I'd be able to capture the interesting details of my subject's focal area in the drawings. The only product I've used that's as good for fine details on bare paper is Conte crayons. Those don't go over heavy layers of other pastels, so these are a special category of finishing pastels that can also be used as general pastels.<br /><br />Try a stick or two and see if you like them. One risk is that you may get carried away with detail and forget to blend loose painterly areas away from your focal area. Below is a painting completed entirely with Girault pastels on light grey PastelMat. "Kuddly Kokomoko" is 8" x 10 and painted over a Unisons underpainting washed with water. I did not need to use fixative on the final painting at all.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pFiWUwJv9RA/T2ECFn9EckI/AAAAAAAAAxI/0heP-TWBME0/s1600/3-13-2012-Cat-Kokomoko-Happy-Cats-2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pFiWUwJv9RA/T2ECFn9EckI/AAAAAAAAAxI/0heP-TWBME0/s400/3-13-2012-Cat-Kokomoko-Happy-Cats-2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719855297384968770" /></a>robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8451889633700974771.post-87982241443865141352012-02-14T12:39:00.001-08:002012-02-14T13:02:18.987-08:00Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede Reviewed<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3KvyiJNgNHE/TzrGzOEuDbI/AAAAAAAAAtQ/zpxoHhl7NhY/s1600/2-14-2012-Pastel-Puzzle-2-second-piece-24-done.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3KvyiJNgNHE/TzrGzOEuDbI/AAAAAAAAAtQ/zpxoHhl7NhY/s400/2-14-2012-Pastel-Puzzle-2-second-piece-24-done.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709094060899044786" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede</span> is a new pastel surface that came out in 2010 or 2011. I bought a pack of ten pieces with all 8 colors plus an extra sheet of black and an extra sheet of white. It's similar to ClaireFontaine PastelMat in that it's a coated surface but not sanded or gritty. It has a soft almost velvety fine-grained matte surface. <br /><br />So fine grained that if I wanted to do pen details or mix media on it, I could do that. The advantage of both products is that they'll make very fine detail possible while holding many more layers of pastel than non-sanded pastel paper. The coating is applied to a heavy card and stands up well to wet underpaintings and wash treatments. I cut out a six inch square to do my section of a "Puzzle Painting" where the photo reference was divided on a grid and 36 different artists each do a piece of the whole painting, then marked it up for a 5" square piece.<br /><br />I think the photo reference is of a candy dish with some jelly beans in it, my piece definitely looked like jelly beans but some other pieces looked like they had bits of chocolate. I liked how much detail I had so I could get down, layer, underpaint and see how well the surface stands up to water.<br /><br />I sketched the outlines using Carb-Othello pastel pencils, filled them with flat color and then washed over them using a waterbrush. I'm not sure what would've happened if I'd used a lot of water, soaked it like I was going to do big watery washes with watercolor, but at least for washing a dry underpainting to turn it into a wet one, the Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede performed beautifully!<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v1i-8DU6lA0/TzrGy9wz-8I/AAAAAAAAAtE/zePX4-CnZQU/s1600/2-14-2012-Pastel-Puzzle-2-second-piece-24-block-in.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 394px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-v1i-8DU6lA0/TzrGy9wz-8I/AAAAAAAAAtE/zePX4-CnZQU/s400/2-14-2012-Pastel-Puzzle-2-second-piece-24-block-in.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709094056520580034" /></a><br /><br />Pencil lines come through strong and clean on Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede. If you want to combine pencil and pastel or pen and watercolor and pastel, this stuff would be wonderful for various multi-media styles. Try different mediums on the surface along with soft or oil pastels. I don't think you'd get much layering with oil pastels but using hard or soft pastels it gives plenty of layering and removes easily with a kneaded eraser.<br /><br />You can see that my brush strokes with the round water brush - equivalent of a size 7 Winsor & Newton round brush - are quite visible. Watercolor moves around on this surface. I don't think I'd have any trouble if I wanted to do wet into wet watercolor washes on it. The coating is absorbent and retains its texture after washing. This isn't true of all coated and sanded pastel surfaces.<br /><br />Sennelier La Carte pastel card is made with a watersoluble glue holding the vegetable flakes to the card, so you don't dare sneeze at it. Little holes will appear where the coating washes off. So it's best with any coated or sanded pastel surface to test water on a small piece of it to find out what dissolves the coating. I haven't tested it with turpentine or odorless mineral spirits yet so I'll add to this review if I do - sometimes water won't dissolve a coating but other solvents do. Whatever solvents you use, always test them on a small bit outside the picture area to find out if it'll destroy the coating on any coated or sanded pastel paper.<br /><br />I found that it could hold quite a few layers. The finished pastel puzzle piece is up at the top of this article. I used Color Conte hard pastels and gave it four or five layers to mix colors before I had to add anything else. This is about twice as much layering as I'd get using non-sanded paper like Canson mi-Tientes. It was still grabby and full of tooth when I switched to Mungyo Gallery Artist Soft Squares for the final two or three layers - again for color mixing, some areas got two or three more coats in more than one color to blend them.<br /><br />It holds hard edges beautifully, almost too well. I had to deliberately soften some edges on this little square painting because working just up to the lines and changig colors gave harsh clean edges. Perfect if what you want is hard-edged details, for soft edges it's better to blend across them with a stick than try to blend with fingers or tools.<br /><br />I tried blending the edges softer with Q-tips but discovered this pulled off color and went back to the underpainting rather than blurring it. Some other blenders like Colour Shapers might work better and it helps to have a lot of pastel on before trying to blend. Like PastelMat, Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede keeps your strokes exactly where you put them. This makes blending with sticks work beautifully. I choose a stick that's mid-way between the adjacent colors in value and a hue that works well with both of them - in some areas I used gray, in others I used a dark sanguine, it varied.<br /><br />Because you can add so many layers, even a small set of pastels like my 24 Color Conte sticks will give a gorgeous range of combinations. Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede is perfect for detailed realism and hard or medium pastels. It's grabby but fine-grained, so filling the tooth with super soft pastels like Senneliers would probably limit how much more you can put on it unless they're rubbed in thoroughly.<br /><br />Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede also erases completely clean with a kneaded eraser. I got a dark smudge in the middle of a bright spot when I was doing the original layers, a bit of the dark blue got misplaced. A kneaded eraser cleaned it right back to white without damaging the surface at all. I was gentle with it but very happy with how it erases.<br /><br />Because it's in a category with Clairefontaine PastelMat, Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede is a wonderful surface for Pan Pastels painting. I haven't tried Pans on it yet but judging by how pastel pencils and hard pastels work on it, I expect the same wonderful results. It's like painting on the sticky side of glue. Erase if you want to make major changes, you can get it good and clean. If you want a thick, textured, painterly look with super-soft pastels, go back to the original Art Spectrum Colourfix or try Art Spectrum Colourfix Supertooth, which as almost as harsh and toothy as Kitty Wallis paper.<br /><br />Enjoy! Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede comes in eight good colors including white, black, cool and dark colors and a brilliant blue-violet that would be fun for nocturnes. You can tell sheets apart from Art Spectrum Colourfix at a glance because unlike regular Colourfix, the coating goes right out to the edges of the sheet without a bare half inch around it to put under the mat.<br /><br />PS - sorry about the two month hiatus. I had some serious health problems over December and January. I'd been overextending myself physically, routinely walking too far, going up and down too many stairs since the elevator broke and just doing too much. Eventually I hit the Big Crash and literally slept through Christmas, then had a two month backlog of things to catch up on. <br /><br />I'll be working on getting back to regular weekly posts now, enjoy!robertsloan2arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02598847116529877475noreply@blogger.com1