SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics and Painting Boards

SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics are a bargain brand of heavy body acrylic paint with surprisingly good quality. Familiar pigments, consistent texture with good pigment load make these an incredible bargain at a very low price. Frugal artists, students, muralists and painters who do scenery for theatres should give these a try!

SoHo Urban Artist Acrylic paints have a good texture for heavy body acrylics. These aren’t the bottled acrylics for decorative painting, they have the texture of oils straight from the tube. Covering power is excellent on the Titanium White, though some pigments are by their nature transparent such as Dioxazine Violet.

The 24 color set provides an enormous range of choices for a new artist. The palette’s almost too generous for a beginner. Most painters will find their favorites in it. I found many of mine - Payne’s Grey, Dioxazine Violet, Sap Green, Prussian Blue as well as Pthalo Blue. My only staple pigment not represented is Permanent or Quinacridone Rose, though if I wanted a separate tube, Rose Madder is available in open stock.

Texture was the same across all colors that I used. I combined at least half of the colors in the box in my miniature, testing Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, Permanent Green Light, Sap Green, Alizarin Crimson, Dioxazine Violet, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow Hue, Lemon Yellow

Toxic pigments such as Cobalt and Cadmium are represented by Hues. Pigments aren’t listed by pigment number, but all the colors are available in open stock as well as the sets. Lightfastness is not listed on the tubes. It may be able to be derived by looking up the pigments. If you’re looking for an inexpensive acrylic paint to practice or do preliminary works, the price is right and the quality is good for student grade.

After I painted the red apple with Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Yellow Hue, I recognized that this isn’t the fugitive traditional Alizarin Crimson that’s transparent, nearly black in mass tone and has an odd brownish undertone. It’s the brilliant, cool, purple cast Permanent Alizarin or a mixture and that bodes well for the lightfastness of the set. I’m pretty sure from the actual color of the paint that it’s more like a quinacridone and so it does superbly take the place of a Quinacridone Rose in my palette.

The price on all of the SoHo Urban Artist products is remarkably low for their quality. These acrylics are no exception, they’re comparable to Liquitex and other acrylics I’ve used. The big 24 color set is a starter with sample sized 21ml tubes. It’s a great bargain for a miniaturist especially, if you don’t use up much paint at a time they’ll likely last well or if you prefer thinning them to ink consistency for watercolor-like effects.

If you prefer working larger and bolder, all colors are also available in 75ml tubes, 250 ml big tubes and a 500ml jar. Muralists will be glad to know the regular price at Jerry’s is only $9.99 for the big 500ml jar, $3.99 for the giant 250ml tube or $2.97 for the full size 75ml tube. At time of writing they're on super sale $1.49 for the 75ml tube and the larger sizes are marked down too. Watch for sales.

The 24 color Value Set is only $19.99. Jerry's also carries a complete painting set with walnut finish table easel, 5-pack of painting boards, brushes, palette knives, 24 tubes, gloss and matte mediums plus an instructional DVD for $79.99. That one might make a great gift for a friend or relative who's interested in taking up painting. Non toxic hues and water cleanup mean the set's safe to purchase for your kids or grandkids.

Watch for sale prices if you’re planning a big project. These inexpensive good quality acrylics may be just the thing to paint large on canvases, walls, gessoed masonite or any other type of acrylic painting surface. Anyone painting flats for live theatre will be able to cut costs with those big pots.

It’s not hard to thin tube acrylics to the liquid texture of bottled acrylics for crafts projects. Just add a little water to achieve exactly the texture you want. Acrylics are the great mimic medium - you can use them for crafts like enamels, thin to transparency to use like watercolors, paint heavy bodied pictures as if they were oils and clean up or thin with water. Impasto mediums and special texture gels from Derivan and others extend the variety of effects you can get.

They dry quickly and leave little or no mess if you use a glass, ceramic or other non-porous surface. Gloss and matte mediums are available in the complete painting set but not listed separately at Jerry’s. These paints are compatible with other brands of acrylic paints and mediums, so using Liquitex, Golden or any other acrylic mediums with it should work just as well.

They dry to a very nice semi-gloss finish. If you want a gloss finish or matte finish, get some matte or gloss acrylic medium in any brand you like. Acrylic paints are compatible across brands. SoHo Urban Artist acrylics should work well with any acrylic paints you already have, whether bottled or heavy body tube paints.

A couple of tips for using SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics. Synthetic brushes are best for use with acrylics. Either use the stiff white taklon brushes that have a texture like bristle, or softer golden taklon or nylon brushes for a different look. The stiff ones will leave distinct brush strokes and painterly texture effects. Softer golden Taklon brushes can be used to smooth out all texture and hide your brush strokes for realism.

Don't use natural bristle brushes with any paint that thins with water. The flagged tips will soak water and degrade. The brush loses its stiffness and stops holding as much paint if it's soaked in water. Synthetic imitation bristle brushes stay good and firm and the hairs don't soak the water at all. They're also easier to clean if acrylic paint dries in them and cheaper to replace if ruined irreparably.

Keep your brushes damp at all times - they do dry fast and may stick in the brush hairs if you let brushes dry with paint in them. Rinse brushes in warm or hot water to soften clumps if you make a mistake and get bits of film on them, after loosening it up with Master’s Brush Cleaner cake or a gentle dish detergent. Likewise washing out a palette with warm water will make any dried paint peel up clean, while diluting and dissolving any paint that’s still wet. Don’t let large acrylic skins go down the drain or you’ll clog it though. Peel them off and chuck them in the trash.

Along with the SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics value set, I tested the SoHo Urban Artist Painting Boards that I also received to review. The surface is white, impressed with a very fine canvas pattern simulating portrait grain canvas on a sturdy 2.3mm board. They’re lightweight and didn’t warp while handling, something that can happen even with ATC size boards.

Sizes range from 12” x 16” to 2 1/2” x 3 1/2” ATC boards through several other common sizes including 11” x 14”, 9” x 12”, 6” x 9” and 8” x 10”. They’re sold in packs of five or bulk boxes of 120, 240 or 360. They’re inexpensive and convenient for a prolific painter, good for color studies, practice, display or framing. Prices range from $1.81 for the five-pack of 6” x 9” to $6.35 for the 12” x 16” so these are very inexpensive even in relation to canvas boards.

If they’re framed, it wouldn’t matter that the sides of the painting panels aren’t wrapped. It’s a small thing that bothers me a little about them but this is definitely a bargain product.

For studies, practice and frugal painters, they’ve got a good surface that takes the paint exactly as well as gessoed canvas boards. For ATCs, I might want to run a black or gilded marker around the thick sides to give the edges a nicer look. Testing that with a gold Sharpie, it didn’t take very well but using deep gold metallic gouache worked great. A bottle of metallic gold acrylic would work just as well.

If you want to paint a lot, the combination of SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics and SoHo Urban Artist Painting Boards is a good way to practice without spending a fortune. If you have big projects in mind, they may be a cost effective solution for murals, theatre sets and other very large works. Any frugal painter will have a good time with these products.

Don’t be afraid to botch anything you do with these acrylics because at this price, you can just redo it again and jot the date on the back to record your progress. Because lightfastness isn’t listed for the paints and acid free or archival isn’t listed for the boards, I’d recommend them for preliminary work, decorative work, illustration, practice, leisure painters and students.

Art journals are another excellent use for SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics. Any interior paintings aren’t going to get the kind of sustained light exposure as a wall painting in a sunny room. Another thing to remember is that while lightfastness isn’t listed, many times the non toxic hues are more lightfast than the traditional pigments they replace. They may have different qualities, such as cadmium hues sometimes being less opaque.

The colors mix beautifully, exactly as I expect for the listed pigments. Most of the named pigment colors are lightfast as far as I know, with the exception of Alizarin Crimson. It’s popular with painters but I prefer both the hue and the permanence of Permanent Alizarin Crimson. I was very glad this company's Alizarin Crimson is the modern pigment rather than the historic one.

What I’ve found as a serious painter is that being able to create color studies and preliminary versions of my paintings improves them dramatically. With art supplies, you get what you pay for. There is a reason to pay more for specialty artist grade acrylics with well known brands. Do you really want to spend that much to paint a stage set or a mural in your child’s bedroom? SoHo Urban Artist acrylics are good value for a very low price, enough to let any painter have uninhibited freedom to experiment. The best prices are on the 24 color Value Set and the biggest jars.

One last point. Sometimes even though for years I’ve been purchasing top quality artist grade supplies, I’ll freeze up and hesitate to use them or constrain myself to subjects and techniques I’m already confident with. These handle with the same consistency as other brands of heavy body acrylics, even the most expensive ones I own. When I want to cut loose and try something loony or fool around in my art journals, I’ll definitely reach for SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics. They’re priced for any budget and handle like the best.

It’s the same thing with the boards. Bulk boxes of SoHo Urban Artist Painting Boards means no need to scrape or paint over any failed experiments. Just date it, set it aside, try again and keep the series to appreciate your progress over time. There’s a lot to be said for bulk quantity in budget supplies to stimulate creativity. If you want to become a better painter, get a bulk box of boards in your favorite size. You’ll never hesitate to practice or experiment with that many chances to get it right.

Here's my example painting using SoHo Urban Artist Acrylics on an ATC size SoHo Urban Artist Painting Board. I worked from a photo of some fruit I took months ago back in Arkansas and cropped tonight to create a new ACEO.


Still Life with Violet Curtain by Robert A. Sloan.

Stillman and Birn Beta Sketchbook

Stillman & Birn's Beta Series sketchbook comes in four sizes like the other four archival sketchbooks in the series. The paper is ultra heavy natural white 180lb Rough texture. Compared to Rough watercolor paper I've used before, the level of texture is more like a heavy-texture Cold Press variation. The texture bumps are small enough not to preclude painting on a small scale but deep enough to make beautiful broken color effects with a dry brush or Conte stick.

The Beta is available in both hard cover and spiral wire bindings. I prefer the spiral wire binding, the covers are just as heavy as the hard cover version but I can fold the cover and used pages around to the back for scanning purposes. It's also easier to lay it flat for a two page spread.

The texture is the same as the equally heavy weight Delta Series sketchbook. It's beautiful paper. While it's listed as Natural White, it's a very bright Natural White comparable to some other papers' Bright White color. This gives true color to any transparent medium used on the Beta sketchbook.

I fell in love with this sketchbook and gave it a serious workout as follows:



This is a quick painting using Lukas 1862 watercolors. It's on the back of my self portrait, among other things it tests whether a heavy soaking will carry color through to the other side. It didn't. This painting didn't damage my self portrait and no trace of it shows on that page. No matter how much water I used on the self portrait, it didn't flood through to this side either.

Because the paper is so heavy, I used wet in wet techniques on the fruit and charged in more layers of soft-edged color several times. I deliberately rippled my first strokes on the edges of some leaves but you can see they're hard edged shapes, within them I swept several layers of color before they dried. Last, I did some dry brush bark texture in a neutral mixture.

I liked the results. The white background gave me true color and all of my mixtures came out as planned, though of course they dried lighter than they looked when I painted them in. So far so good. This sketchbook would rock for botanicals in watercolor and any watercolor studies. It didn't cockle but I was using small wet in wet areas nowhere near the edge of the page.



My next challenge was to paint very close to the edge using Derwent Watercolour Pencils washed. I created a watercolor pencil drawing and washed it thoroughly, scrubbing the marks out in several areas. While it was still drying I added watercolor accents. The page cockled slightly and dried completely flat for my self portrait. On the right you can see an area where I let color drip down the side and spread the drip out right to the edge to see if it would dry flat.

So now you know more or less how I look and that I need a haircut. :D



For my last test of my Stillman & Birn Beta series sketchbook, I wanted to see whether the Rough surface would still allow clean pen lines for pen and watercolor work. So I used a watersoluble black fine point pen to sketch my ashtray in stages showing contour lines, shading and finally a wash done with waterbrush. I was happy with the line smoothness even on Rough paper. I can use pen accents to my water media on the Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook and have fun with anything I want to draw or paint with on its super heavy, durable, archival paper.

So far I think the Beta Series is my favorite of these wonderful, archival sketchbooks. The white paper gives me the freedom of toning it or underpainting. The super heavy stock would respond well to gesso if I wanted to do oil studies or oil-style acrylic paintings or collage anything onto a page with gloss or matte acrylic medium. Colourfix sanded pastel primer would allow me to underpaint or tone a page and then turn it into a sanded page for pastel work.

I'm tempted to turn a Beta journal into a pastel journal by priming and taping sheets of glassine to the top of each page so it folds back or folds down over the finished art. If they bound in glassine pages over the super white paper, it could be used as a pastel journal without any more work or just with the priming. It's good for any multi-media use. Don't be afraid to get it soggy - it'll dry flat and gorgeous!

Stillman and Birn Epsilon Sketchbook

Stillman & Birn's Epsilon Sketchbook is another elegant hardcover artist's journal with fine white 100lb heavy archival paper. It's designed primarily for pen drawing with a smooth plate surface that gives a clean line.

Light washes aren't recommended. For light washes I'd recommend the Alpha or Gamma sketchbooks. For heavy washes and other wet mediums including acrylics and gouache the super heavy 180lb Beta or Delta sketchbook papers. Epsilon is a specialty book designed for fine pen drawing.

So naturally I tried it with a different dry medium to see how well it accepts hard pastels. I love using hard pastels or Conte crayons for sketching. My concern was that the plate surface wouldn't be able to handle pencil or sketching crayons because it's so smooth.

Not a problem. It may be a smooth plate surface but it has loads of tooth to accept dry smudging mediums. I used Derwent pastels on the Epsilon paper with great results sketching my cat from life. Given how well the pastels performed, graphite or colored pencils should go well on this paper. Use a light hand with colored pencils so that you don't fill the tooth too early if you're going to build up multiple layers of color.



Of course a sketchbook designed for pen drawing needs to perform well with a technical pen. I got out my favorite Pigma Micron size 05 and did some quick sketches of my cat, one more detailed and one fast gesture. Using loose lines and deliberately sketching with a lift, I got a bit of broken line. That was my technique though, rather than a quality of the paper. When I slowed down I got smooth clean lines.

The paper surface is perfect for technical pens. Fast or slow, pen lines lay down with smooth edges and don't bleed through. The natural white color is great for lines showing up and would respond just as well to color pen drawing.



Then I tortured the paper with Tombow Dual Tip Brush Pens. These are more like markers than pens. They're water based and very juicy. I layered color. I used the colorless blender pen to pull out soft edges in some areas.

When I put a third or fourth layer of color and blended with a heavy stroke, the paper surface came up a little and pilled. I was able to carefully pull those "pills" off with the colorless blender pen though and save this drawing of a wood duck. It was a slight effect easily repaired rather than a major problem.

Best of all, the very wet Tombow Brush pen marks did not soak through to the back of the page. This wood duck was on the other side of the Pigma Micron cat sketches before I drew or scanned them. There isn't a trace of color or darkening on the cat side of the page even though I rubbed the surface off in a couple of deep color areas.

The manufacturer doesn't recommend using markers on this paper, but if you're careful you may be able to make them perform on it. Just don't do much blending or layering as the moisture may start to weaken the paper surface. Other sorts of pens are fine, like the Pitt Artist Pens with their smaller brush tips.

The surface erases easily, so if you prefer to pencil sketch under your pen drawings there's no problem removing light or medium pencil lines. It's possible to make pencil lines so dark they won't come up, but on this paper I had no problem removing the pencil lines I tested - they didn't groove the surface. Colored pencil may or may not be erasable, it depends on how lightly you colored and how much patience you have with a kneaded eraser. If you'd like to erase color, use Col-Erase pencils.

Thumbs up on a beautiful, archival pen drawing sketchbook. I'm going to have a lot of fun with this one exploring different styles of pen work and may even color some of my pen drawings with my Tombow brush tips.



What I like best about all of these Stillman & Birn sketchbooks is that they're archival. I love looking at sketches by great artists of the past and have an idea that my grandkids and their kids may be interested in Grandpa's sketchbooks too. More than that, when I go back to old sketchbooks I find good ideas that I may not have had the skill to render at the time. They're well protected in sturdy hard covers whether wirebound or hard cover so they survive being knocked around in messenger bags, kicked off the table by my cat or tripped on in the dark. The quality is excellent and prices are comparable to other high quality archival sketchbooks.

I've got two more to test and describe. With how well these three performed, I'm looking forward to the others with delight!

Lukas 1862 Watercolors

Lukas 1862 watercolors are artist grade, pigment rich and lovely. They come in 12, 24 and 48 color half pan sets plus a 24 color full pans sets, available at Jerry's Artarama. The quality is excellent and the price remarkable compared to other artist grade brands. I'm not sure how Jerry's manages to price these as low as they do given the genuine Cadmiums, Chromiums and other expensive pigments involved.

The colors in the 24 color set I tested are well chosen and happily include several I consider essential. I get extremely frustrated if a watercolor set has no magenta or quinacridone red or permanent red, there has to be a bright cold red to make me happy. Fortunately, this set includes Magenta and also the Alizarin Crimson is brighter, more violet-cast and cleaner than most other brands' Alizarin Crimson. It looks more like Winsor & Newton's Permanent Alizarin Crimson than the sadly fugitive natural pigment we're all so used to in various paints.

Cyan is a good strong warm blue close to Cerulean, maybe a hair darker. I used the Cyan in my example for the sky color on the painting below. Payne's Grey is a color I find more useful and necessary than black, a cool darkener and a gorgeous monochrome color in its own right. For deep dark monochromes this set includes Raw Umber (nearly black), Paynes Grey and Ivory Black. If you're sketching in the field it can be very handy to have those darks. Deepening reds, blues, greens, it's easier to do that with a warm darkener or cool darkener - you can choose to mute them in darkening or not depending an which one you choose.

Dioxazine Violet is another essential color, especially for landscapes. Soft thin violet washes can push distant areas into the distance, deep violet accents under foliage can make greens less monochromatic and of course you may want to paint irises or other violet flowers.

These are moist pan watercolors that pick up easily with a wet brush. The sturdy enameled metal tin has a flip-out mixing area with ten slants, making color mixing easy even if you're painting in the car or out on a hike. For outdoor painting, the set also includes a handy thumb ring on the back. A generous gutter between the two rows of half pans gives plenty of room for a brush or two.

I tested it with my Niji medium tip water brush. Yep. The water brush fits neatly into the tin in that generous gutter. That can help a lot if you're using this outdoors and don't want to carry water with you.

One of the main reasons I prefer enameled metal watercolor cases to plastic is that the mixing areas wipe clean with less staining. Plastic is more porous and it's possible to leave patches of Pthalo Blue or strong red stains distorting the color of the mixtures you create in that area next time, or the value of the mixture you just did even if you're using the same color. So that personal little fine point is a big plus for the good strong metal tin.

The full range of 70 colors in Lukas 1862 watercolors are available in both pans and tubes, so as you use up the half pans it's possible to refill or replace them. The set is a great bargain for super quality. These are every bit as good as any other artist grade watercolors I've used, come in a great format and the price is extremely competitive. Any of the tin sets would make a good gift for an aspiring watercolorist.

Because these do use artist grade mineral pigments, some of them with known toxicity like the Cadmiums and Chromium Green, don't buy this set for a child. Get it for yourself and buy a Sakura Koi or Winsor & Newton Cotman set for anyone underage. When using Lukas 1862 watercolors, be sure not to point your brush with your mouth. Get used to the habit of pointing it with your fingers after rinsing and don't eat while painting.

Below is a landscape painted with 24 Lukas 1862 half pan watercolors in a large Moleskine watercolor journal. I loved how the color flowed, how strong and pigment-rich all of the colors were and how easy it was to mix on the palette as well as the paper. In a couple of areas I went stronger than I expected to because these paints are so good. Finer grinding and more pigment to binder ratio is what makes artist grade watercolor so much stronger than student grade watercolors.

Stillman and Birn Alpha Sketchbook

Stillman & Birn sent me five beautiful sketchbooks to review. I've been using the "Delta" as my current sketchbook because I love the heavy ivory color multimedia paper so much. It stands up well to everything I do in it and I'm still as happy with it as when I reviewed it before my move.

When I packed up my first batch of boxes to ship to San Francisco, I made sure to pack all my new review supplies! A lot of my old supplies are still in Arkansas but all these new goodies are in hand. My apologies that it took so long to get packed, travel, unpack and settle in before reviewing any of them.

Stillman & Birn's "Alpha" sketchbook is archival, neutral Ph and strong. It complies with international standards of responsible forestry and carries a Woodland Ecology and Conservation label. Rag content isn't listed, nor proportion of alpha cellulose. The color is a soft natural white, not the screaming blue-white of some white papers but white enough to give true color in any medium.

This sketchbook has splendid quality paper in a good hard cover binding. I think it'd make a great gift for anyone who likes to draw, sketch, scrapbook or otherwise keep an art journal. The only risk is temptation to pick one up for yourself when you're out buying presents. The cover has a nice faux leather texture with a paper strip showing what type of sketchbook it is. This one's got an example sketch by Michelangelo.

Stillman & Birn's Alpha sketchbook is suitable for all dry media and light washes. Naturally I decided to test it first with light washes and dip pens to see how well it stands up to water. I used my Daniel Smith Walnut Ink with a bamboo dip pen and then dipped into it with a Niji waterbrush for light values, let that dry and went back into it with a 1/4" Ebony Splendor brush.

I'll review the brush later on in its own post. Right now I'm happy to report this 100lb paper handled a soppy loose wash on the second batch of pears well. It cockled a little and dried nearly flat in both areas I swiped with the water brush.

The smooth vellum surface gives a clean line with Tombow dual tip brush pens or with the bamboo dip pen. Colored pencils would perform well on this paper, it's got plenty of tooth and I'm sure if I wanted to go nuts with Prismacolors that it might hold almost as many layers as Stonehenge. I can feel the tooth when I touch the page, yet it's fine enough that my pen lines don't get disrupted.

Overall, I'm delighted with this hardbound sketchbook. I usually choose spiral bindings but this hard cover Alpha sketchbook is one that I'll replace once it's filled. It's the sort of classy sketchbook to leave out in a formal living room along with a wood box set of colored pencils for guests to add their sketches. The size is convenient for my scanner, unlike 9" x 12" sketchbooks the entire page fits on the scanner bed.

My main recommendation is that if you use light washes, leave space between the painting and the edges of the paper. It does cockle but not nearly as much as lighter papers and it will dry solid. Laying something flat on the closed book can help flatten out the cockling too.

Gallery Artists Handmade Soft Pastels

Gallery Artists' Handmade Soft Pastels are the latest addition to the Mungyo Gallery line of reformulated soft pastels. I've tried the Semi-Hard sticks, the Soft Squares and Soft Rounds, finding each of these products to be far higher quality than their economical price suggests. On all these new lines, quality is consistent, the manufacturer claims lightfastness and the products are AP non toxic. It's safe to use them around small children and animals.

I really looked forward to trying the Gallery Artists' Handmade Soft Pastels. So when I received a 30 color review set, I was thrilled. No disappointment here! The color range in the 30 color set is complete with warm and cool primaries and green, a full spectrum, some extremely useful tints, a few of the most useful neutrals and some very useful darks - two dark greens, a very dark blue, dark cool gray and moderately dark reddish brown. Tints include pale blue, dusty pale violet, pale yellow a little darker than ivory, a good medium pink and a light orange excellent for portrait highlights. Whoever picked which sticks to put in this range was right on form to make it a balanced set for general use. Portraits, landscapes, floral still lifes, any subject I felt like painting would be possible just using this set.

Spectrum colors are clear, true and bright. It's much easier to scumble over spectrum bright colors to mute them, or use tints to mute and lighten them or darks to darken and mute them, than it is to try to create strong brights when you don't have them in the box. The colors are so rich and vivid that I've had doubts about the lightfastness, so they may have been finding ways of using Quinacridones among the pigments or some other modern lightfast bright red-violets.

Texture on the Gallery Artists' Handmade soft pastels is very similar to Unisons and a sample stick of Richeson Handmade that I've tried. They're in exactly that category. The sticks are larger than Unisons but smaller than the big Richeson sticks and much smaller than the giant Mount Vision sticks, the other pastels I put in this texture category. They're soft, fluffy, creamy and go on easily. They'll go over all the others adding more layers. It's possible to build up strong impasto effects much easier with these than the other three Gallery pastels. Texture is consistent across all the colors, a big help if you like predictability. None of the colors in this set crumbled or had trouble holding together.

These are finishing pastels. The price is significantly higher, matches the price of Richeson handmade pastels for the same reason. They're hand rolled. They take a lot more hand labor to create than machine-rolled pastels. Sticks are uniform in size for hand rolled, which is to say they vary slightly in shape and length. It looks like each one was made with the same size dollop of paste and the roller sometimes got them a little longer and sometimes a little fatter.

They can be used on unsanded pastel paper with spectacular results. I watched an Arnold Lowrey pastel video on ArtistsNetworkTV and decided to give this set a stretch on Canson Mi-Tientes to see how they perform.

Wow. I should've known. Every one of these has been sweet on my favorite inexpensive sanded pastel paper. Here's my version of the Lowrey demo seascape:



Following the demo, I used light applications, blended and layered. These pastels gave me more layers on Mi-Tientes than others I've tried. They're comparable to Mount Vision on unsanded paper and handled a lot like my Unisons. If you like Unisons, you may want to look close at the Gallery Artists' range for some of the bright colors missing in the Unison range.

Packaging is good too. Good slotted foam padding inside a very sturdy cardboard box slides into a lightweight cardboard sleeve that keeps the box closed and gives added protection, with another layer of foam on top. I'd trust this set to be tossed in its original package into my carry bag when I go out doing street art in San Francisco. Its compact box and good range for the number of pastels will make it a great set for taking out into the city for plein air painting.

Like the rest, these are available at Jerry's Artarama and ASW. Online price is $2.99 a stick, same as the Richeson handmade at Blick. I prefer these to the Richesons because everything else being equal, the color range in Gallery Artists' Handmade Soft Pastels is more evenly balanced with fewer near duplicates even in the full range 200 color wood box set.

That's a wicked temptation. At only $499 it's a glorious big full range set for anyone who likes having a great range of tints per hue in an evenly balanced range without any major gaps. I'm impressed by the color range Gallery produced in these handmade pastels. Excellent all around, Gallery Artists' handmade soft pastels might become my workhorse pastels for street sketching.

I'm relocating to San Francisco at the end of the month. Updates might be a bit irregular since the move has me very busy, but I have lots more good art supplies stacked up to review - four more Stillman & Birn archival journals, Lukas Berlin watersoluble oils, SoHo Urban Artists products, great new brushes and much, much more. Even a Charvin premium linen canvas and set of top quality artists' oils. Of course I'll have to demonstrate the SoHo Urban Artist stuff with urban scenes! Good thing I'm moving somewhere that I can't turn a corner without seeing something paintable!

Sometime in late August or late September, I'll get my license from the San Francisco Arts Commission and pick up my old Street Sketching career. Back when I lived in New Orleans, I was one of the artists who set up in the French Quarter painting outdoors all day and selling off the easel. For more information and articles about my move, see my other blog, Robs Art Lessons. As I pack up my studio, relocate and set up to do my old gig again, I'll describe everything from how to paint for tourists to how I relocate across the continent with all of my kit and get set up again for the job I loved best - street art!

Stillman and Birn Delta Series Sketchbook

Stillman & Birn Delta Series Sketchbook is a top quality, archival, super tough all-media art journal with teeth! If there's a Bruce Willis of sketchbooks, I think I just met it. This handsome 6" x 8" double wire bound multi media book stood up to everything I tried on it and just kept asking for more. Begging for more, no matter how much I soaked it, the rough tooth ivory paper kept its grip on pastel and watercolor pencil marks until washed or smudged.

Recently I received five beautiful sketchbooks from Stillman & Birn, one each of all five Greek letter archival sketchbooks. Each one is archival and top quality, what varies is the type of surface - rough, medium, smooth, the color and the weight of the paper. Each of these top quality sketchbooks is best for different types of media but all of them seem flexible and tough enough for a wide variety of uses - including my favorite sketch and wash. So let's start with the Delta.

The first book that attracted me is the Stillman & Birn “Delta Series” with extra heavy weight rough ivory paper. The color’s very pleasing, a light soft ivory that’s just dark enough a white accent would barely show up, giving a warm cast to any colors I put on it. The paper is super heavy - 180lb or 270 gsm. Thicker than standard 140lb watercolor paper, its enhanced wet strength is suitable for mixed media rendering.

I wanted to know if it would stand up to anything I threw at it.



My first test page has a sketch of a white horse done with Derwent Watercolour Pencils and washed. The rough, toothy paper took the color as strong and deep as the Aquabee Bogus Recycled Rough paper, it’ll be wonderful for pastels, pastel pencils and oil pastels. I added several layers in some patches for mixed color before washing them, felt as if I could’ve added even more if I wanted to.

I washed that with a wet Niji waterbrush, squeezed heavily and gave it quite a bit of water in some spots. No cockling, no trouble, the paper absorbed the water easily and nothing bled through to the other side. I love this paper!

Below the horse picture, I chose a dark purple pencil and tested how well the multi media paper erases. I went very heavy, achieved full deep coverage quick because the rough toothy paper held the color easily. This will be great for colored pencils sketching even with the softest pencils like Coloursoft or Prismacolor.

I had no doubt graphite would come up easily, so I picked the toughest pencil to erase and lighten - dry soft Derwent Watercolour pencil. I used a Faber Castell pencil eraser to cut through the color all the way down to the paper.

Wow. It did erase completely where I gave it the most work. The paper surface doesn’t feel damaged in the erased patches either, even though I went heavy with the eraser using one that often damages weaker papers.



Delta Series paper is extremely tough. I love it. But I’d only washed it with a water brush. What would happen if I wanted to do big soggy wet in wet washes in my journal? Clouds with dropped in color or splashy drips and backruns?

I used a 1” flat brush to soak the back of the white horse page up to 1/2” from the edges. Had water floating on it and shiny at first, then got out Daniel Smith watercolor sticks and doodled into it.

My, the Delta has thirsty paper. No sooner had I started sketching than the big soggy initial wetting sank in and I was working on barely-damp paper. That was surprising, but gave me a chance to see how the toothy surface handled DS Watercolor Sticks. I love it. I got good strong color.

Slight warping occurred in the heavy washing, but it flattened out again pretty fast. With the same big brush, I laid in another big wash area above and below the ammonite doodles, then picked up color from the ends of Ultramarine and Sap Green Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks to add swirls and swooping soft-edged watery shapes. THis worked, I did get some soft edged passages especially putting color into an area that already had two water washes and a color stroke. It still soaked up the water fast!

Last, to see how pastel pencils responded on the dried surface, I added a few linear and smudged elements with Carb-Othello Stabilo Pastel Pencils. Color laydown was as fast and soft as with the Derwent Watercolour Pencils and smudging to softness as easy as a quick swipe with my fingers. The multimedia test doodle is 100% successful.

I can do whatever I want on this paper. It’s perfect for mixed media. I’d have no hesitation at gluing in photos or clippings, carving it up with a razor blade to get sparkles, splashing it with acrylics or repeatedly melting areas with a spray bottle. It just keeps taking the punishment and performing beautifully. All that washing didn’t reduce the tooth one bit.

Remember the Eraser Test in the earlier image? I did that before turning the page to drown it before doing my Ammonites Doodle, Looking at it now - exactly the same. No matter how much I poured into it, the paper didn't get damp enough on the side previously used to activate the watercolor pencil eraser test. It's still dry on dry. I can be fearless about turning the page and using both sides even if I'm using watersoluble mediums and want to keep them dry or undisturbed.

This art journal is perfect for outdoor sketching in watercolor or anything I feel like using. Even heavy washes don’t bleed through to the other side of the page and the cockling is minimal - it took a good third of a cup of water to begin to make it cockle. There was none at all from just using the Niji water brush.

This super paper is 87% alpha cellulose, not a rag paper but plant fiber nonetheless. It's forestry certified for woodland ecology and conservation. Highly uniform fiber distribution means there's tooth but no distracting texture like a rough watercolor paper often has - fine clean lines in pen or wash and smooth hard edges are easy. Internal and external sizing is probably why my purple watercolor pencil erasing experiment didn't get wet from the super soaked Ammonite Doodle. At 180lb, it's beefier than standard artist's weight watercolor paper and cockles less.

I'd have no trouble gessoing a few pages to do oils in the field or just doing acrylics right on the paper. This really can take whatever I want to do with it and I know with this archival quality, my color studies and field paintings will still be good years later when I want to do studio paintings from them. I used artist grade supplies because I know the paper will last.

The Stillman & Birn Delta Series Sketchbook is a top of the line artist’s grade sketchbook or art journal. Tough, beautiful, sturdy multi-media paper within heavy board covers in a spiral binding, the Delta is my choice when I want to be able to choose what to use on the spot. So far it stands up to anything I throw at it with so much tooth that oil pastels, pastel pencils or dry pastels would behave just as well with it.