Category: Winsor and Newton

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…

Polkadotting the frame

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.

Closeup of the pre-glued frame

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!

Finished product

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:

  1. I cataloged all of my watercolor paints into an Excel spreadsheet and noted properties like pigment number, lightfastness, transparency, staining, and granulation.
  2. I used a die cutter to make swatch cards and the pages which I will eventually bind.
  3. I swatched the paints I wanted to compare. Blues are my favorite, so I started with my most frequently-used
  4. I used silicon stamps to assign numbers to the swatches for easy identification.
  5. 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.