Schmincke 140-Color Dot Card

I’ve been putting my feelers out, trying to get an idea of what I want for my birthday this year. I like getting gifts that I normally wouldn’t buy on my own but I like to do research to make sure that it will have a perfect home in my collection of supplies.

I’ve been hearing outstanding reviews of Schmincke Horadam watercolors, but I’ve never tried them out. As it so often does, Amazon pulled through for me by offering a 140-color Schmincke dot card.

The packaging is absolutely lovely.

One thing that was slightly disappointing was the small amount of paint they give you in each dot. I am used to the generous blobs of paint Daniel Smith offers on their dot cards. Even though the dots are smaller, I think that I will have enough to test the colors and have some left for accents in paintings.

I can tell just by the deepness of the dried paint that these are highly pigmented. I’m so excited to start discovering new colors!

Just Some Pretty Finetec Pearlescent Colors

I just wanted to share some pretty pictures I took of the Finetec Pearlescent Flip Flop Colors. They are so beautiful and fun to play with! They are only available in the 24-set of the pearlescent colors so it’s a good excuse to upgrade!

*Side angle of Patina showing the chrome effect.*

*A splat of Patina over Mission Gold Sap Green.*

Sneak Peek – Albrecht Durer Watercolor Pencils

I’ve been spending all my free time testing my new Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Watercolor Pencils. I’m going to write a longer review but I wanted to share some pictures of my tests.

*Activated pencils on Canson Watercolor XL.*

Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Swatches

Caran d’Ache products are the crème de la crème of art supplies. Any item they manufacture – whether it be colored pencils, water-soluble pencils, graphite sticks, etc. – is a shining jewel in an art supply collector’s studio.

I was introduced to the brand while meandering through my local art store and stumbling upon a giant open-stock display of Neocolor II water-soluble wax pastels. At the time, I had no idea how to use them, but the vibrant colors beckoned to me. I picked up a tin and went to my studio.

There was a bit of a learning curve. Actually, I’m still learning different techniques. Today, though, I just felt like coloring, so I did some swatches.

I used Arches Rough Watercolor Paper which turned out to be an excellent choice. Because the paper is so toothy, I only needed to make a light pass to get adequate coverage for filling in the squares.

Eventually, I’m going to cut these out and put them in my scrapbook.

First Page of my Scrapbook — DONE!

I finished the first page of my scrapbook over the weekend! The most fun part of this project is choosing the right piece of scrap to make an interesting composition.

This scrap on Arches Rough was a tester of Sennelier Indanthrene Blue mixed with Paul Rubens glitter paint and Finetec Iridescent Paint. The background is a wash of Mission Gold Indigo and Sap Green, with a little bit of Daniel Smith Mars Yellow. It looks moody, like tears, and I thought it was an apt way to start my scrapbook. I suffer from depression and art is very therapeutic for me. I don’t want the whole project to display my sadness—I want to keep it upbeat and colorful—but I do want it to be a true representation of who I am.

Anyway, here it is! I was really impressed with how the page of the Ranger Dylusions Flip Journal held up to the watercolor wash.

Tiny, Dotty Art for the Scrapbook of Scraps

I set aside some time today to re-purpose colorful watercolor scraps to make some tiny art.

Awhile back, I made this dotty watercolor test out of some new Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolors I bought. I can’t remember what colors I mixed to make the background. I had it left over from a different project. The other colors are all Winsor & Newton straight from the tube and the list is as follows:

Manganese Blue Hue – PB15
Rose Dore – PV19, PY97
Indian Yellow – PO62, PY139

I used my beloved Arches Rough Watercolor Paper, which I wrote about in detail in a previous post (click here).

These are the steps I took to re-purpose this tiny scrap that was too colorful for the wastebasket…

My Spellbinder Platinum manual die cutting machine gets a daily workout. If you make tiny art, this is an invaluable tool to make mounts and frames. To make this frame, I used steel rule nesting dies to cut the ideal size frame for my picture. I used Astrobrights 65 lb/176 gsm bright white cardstock.

I decided that I wanted to make it extra dotty, so I used a Faber-Castell small-nib (0.3mm) Pitt Artist Pen to make tiny dots on the frame. The cardstock holds up well – there was no bleeding on the other side.

After I finished dotting the cardstock, I used Tombow MONO Multi-Liquid Glue to adhere the frame to the picture. Now that it’s dry, I get to find a home for it in my scrapbook!

Scrapbook of Scraps Progress Report #1: Manual Die Cutting

Manual die cutting machines and nesting dies are a great investment if you enjoy papercrafting projects. My creative world totally changed when I got my Spellbinder Platinum machine and saw how perfectly uniform I could make swatch cards, easily cut different shapes of paper, and, relevant to my scrapbook project, make tiny frames for tiny pictures.

Let’s start with the dies…

You will hear me talk about Waffle Flower a lot. They are a US company that works with designers to create unique stamps, dies, and other papercrafting products that you truly can’t find anywhere else. Today, I spent the afternoon cutting frames for my Scrapbook of Scraps project.

*Frame made from Astrobrights cardstock.*

After I made several frames, I got out some of my scraps to see what interesting compositions I could make with my sheets upon sheets of color-tester splats.

*A bunch of QoR Watercolor splats waiting to be put to good use*.

QoR watercolors are super-vivid so this page of tests has lots of potential to chop up into teeny-tiny pictures. I love the way the colors flow on this particular section, but I felt like it needed some Finetec Iridescent Watercolors to make it SPARKLE. Note that I haven’t glued the frame on yet. I was just using it to find my favorite color composition.

After I added some shine and let the paint dry, I cut it the little section out and glued it onto the frame.

*Look at the sparkle! It reminds me of an eyeshadow pallette.*

Here are two others that I finished today. These are re-purposed Sennelier test strips.

I haven’t glued any of them in my scrapbook yet because I’m not sure where I’m going to place them. Plus, I didn’t want to deal with anymore glue on my hands.

Stay tuned for my progress on the Scrapbook of Scraps!

Watercolor Pigment Comparison Swatches: Page 1

Cerulean, Cobalt, and Ultramarine Pigments

*Left to right: Cerulean, Cobalt, and Ultramarine Swatches*

I’ve been fascinated with how watercolor paints of the same name vary across brands, even when the same pigment is used. For example, you would expect Daniel Smith’s cerulean blue to look nearly identical to Winsor & Newton’s cerulean blue, right? As you can see from the photo, that’s not the case. I decided to do a study of how colors vary between brands. This deceptively simple-looking page actually took months to finish.

Here is the work that went into its creation:

I cataloged all of my watercolor paints into an Excel spreadsheet and noted properties like pigment number, lightfastness, transparency, staining, and granulation.
I used a die cutter to make swatch cards and the pages which I will eventually bind.
I swatched the paints I wanted to compare. Blues are my favorite, so I started with my most frequently-used
I used silicon stamps to assign numbers to the swatches for easy identification.
After I finish my pages, they are going to be bound in a little flipbook which I’m going to keep next to my desk for easy access to the comparisons.

The most important lesson I learned when I began my research is that color names are less important than pigment numbers. Instead of buying colors based on trade names, I look at the pigment listed on the tube to get a better idea of what the color will actually look like.

Stay tuned for new pigment comparisons! I’ve done swatches for Opera Pink, Viridian, and Lemon Yellow that I’m excited to share!

* I know that I misspelled “Winsor” in the pigment descriptions on the finished page. It will haunt me forever.