Portable Painter Watercolor Palette and Tikky Mechanical Pencil

Portable Painter Watercolor Palette

(colors shown are not included, they are Winsor & Newton half pans)

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

white cosmos painting 3" x 5"

watercolor and some iridescent watercolor glaze on the white petals

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

Six Tikky mechanical pencils, violet, light blue, light green, yellow, orange, pink.

Tikky Mechanical Pencil

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

Jaguar in Winsor & Newton Artist's Watercolor

painted with Portable Painter Palette over Tikky mechanical pencil underdrawing

I painted this jaguar for an art challenge at WetCanvas.com 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. 

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.

Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Paper

Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media Toned Pads

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. 

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.

So naturally I tried it with water media. Mixed water media. Pens and wash and gouache.

Twisty Kitty 6" x 8" gouache, ink and watercolor

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. 

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.

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:

Sekhmet, cat portrait long hair tortie, watercolor and pen

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. 

Sketches in colored pencil on gray, a rock, a leaf and a pear

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.

But was it toothy enough for pastels?

Doe in the Snow, pastel pencil on toned Strathmore 400 mixed media paper.

Photo reference used with permission from DAK723 on WetCanvas.com.

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.

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. 

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.

Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelle Water Brush Set

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!

Caran d’Ache Piston Fill Water Brush

I’ve been using various water brushes for years. Niji and Sakura Koi are my two favorites, with an old Derwent a close third.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So, let’s try that fiber tip brush.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Winsor Newton Bockingford Watercolour Paper

Rain Clouds over Hill

5' x 7" Winsor & Newton Watercolour Marker

on Winsor & Newton 140lb Not surface Bockingford Watercolour Paper

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Something in me said Stop. You're done.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers Travel Set

Ari Cat posing with the W&N Watercolour Markers Travel Set

For scale and because he's beautiful.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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. 

The markers have a bullet tip with a pointed cap on one end and a brush tip with a blunt cap on the other. Warning! The blunt tip has to go down when you put them back in the case. 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. 

My first test was a monochrome sketch in Prussian Blue Hue.

Monochrome Prussian Blue Hue Skyscape and Mountains

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.

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.

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.

Sketches with W&N Watercolour Markers

Mixing and Blending

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

EDIT: 11-19-2014

Went out, decided to make the Bockingford paper a new entry.

Stillman and Birn Zeta Journal

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I used a Niji waterbrush for most of these paintings but have also done some with a squirrel mop along with artist grade watercolors.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!