Tuesday 28 February 2017

Little Tuesday Art Haul

...oops? Well, ok, I ordered this last week so that's ok, right? I couldn't resist - Ken Bromley Art Supplies had a great sale on and I found they still stocked some of the elusive Winsor & Newton Desert Collection watercolours. I did balls up in the video (at the end of this post) and mis-read the tube on INDIAN RED DEEP as PBk25 (it's PBr25!). Oh and I said I would link to Jane Blundell's fantastic website - so here that is!

This time I procured the following - if you're planning to buy from Amazon UK or Amazon USA, don't forget you can get 30 days of Amazon Prime (free shipping and a LOT of free TV/movies!) for FREE right now via these links (USA left, UK right):



PRO-ARTE PROLENE PLUS SIZE 10 RETRACTABLE TRAVEL BRUSH
BUY FROM:
KEN BROMLEY (£12.95 £10.36) 
JACKSON'S (£11.95 £9.60) [ships worldwide]
AMAZON USA (US$39.94 in a set with Filbert and One Stroke)
AMAZON UK (£22.99 in a set with Filbert and One Stroke)
AMAZON CANADA (CDN$127.28 in a set with Filbert and One Stroke)

WINSOR & NEWTON PROFESSIONAL WATERCOLOURS
TRANSPARENT ORANGE
(PO107 Pigment Orange 107 aka Irgazin® DPP Cosmoray Orange)
The vivid nature of this paint is amazing - it catches fire when you add it to water - I wasn't expecting to love it this much!
BUY FROM
Ken Bromley Art Supplies (£6.70 £5.02)

INDIAN RED DEEP
(PBr25 Benzimidazolone Brown)
This is a beautiful transparent red-brown - I can see myself using this a lot on Millford paper which will show off the transparent pigments really well.
BUY FROM:
Ken Bromley Art Supplies (£6.70 £5.02)






Monday 27 February 2017

Little Monday Art Haul!

Aren't Mondays shit? I hate Mondays at best and more so when it's poured with rain all night - but getting a NICE PARCEL makes all the difference! 

This little haul (video below) contained the following and was from The Society for All Artists (The SAA), which I have just joined as they have a really cool deal that ends tomorrow for a FREE SCHMINCKE TRIAL SET for all new members, which is worth about 30 quid and contains TURNERS'S YELLOW, QUINACRIDONE GOLD (HUE), POTTER'S PINK, COBALT VIOLET (HUE), FRENCH ULTRAMARINE and PERYLENE GREEN, which is an interesting mix! Oh btw, I've renamed "haul" videos as "Doctor's Orders" - cute huh?

Good news for non-members and those in the USA/Canada - The SAA sells via Amazon websites worldwide, so I've curated links to the items I procured in case you're interested in trying them - and a really cool thing about The SAA - they charge the EXACT SAME for 1 full Imperial or 2 half Imperial or 4 quarter Imperial sheets i.e. no cutting fee on papers! That's a really good saving. Incidentally, Amazon delivery savings can be made by getting an Amazon Prime account, which gives you free shipping and access to a LOT of TV and movies for one annual fee -  you can trial it for 30 days free of charge at the moment - just click the appropriate image for your regional Amazon site (from left they are USA, UK - unfortunately there are no trials in Canada right now, sorry :( ):

I've also included Jackson's where available - they do ship worldwide!

MILLFORD WATERCOLOUR PAPER 1/4 Imperial, CP, 140lb - 20 sheets
This is a very special paper - as you may know from my review of it - but I've not used it in a few months so I decided it was high time for a re-stock! 
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.COM - US$33.54 for 20 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £30.28 for 20 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CA - CDN$13.95 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM JACKSONS (UK) - £18.80 for 5 full Imperial sheets.

SAUNDERS WATERFORD PAPER, 1/4 Imperial, Rough, 300lb - 4 sheets
This is a very heavy paper - you can see The Frugal Crafter using this exact paper in a recent video - and I love the Rough texture option. It's 100% cotton and lovely to paint on.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.COM - US$15.16 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £13.08 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM SAA VIA AMAZON.CA - CDN$20.23 for 4 sheets.
BUY FROM JACKSONS (UK) - £7.80 for 1 full Imperial sheet.

WINSOR AND NEWTON "Desert Collection" watercolours
349 Yellow Titanate (PBr24) 5mL (discontinued)
BUY FROM DICK BLICK VIA  AMAZON.COM - US$7.13.
BUY FROM ART WORLD ONLINE LTD VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £5.50.

DANIEL SMITH "PrimaTek" series:
190 Serpentine Genuine (N/A) 5mL 
BUY FROM AMAZON.COM - US$11.91
BUY FROM TRAVELDOM STORE VIA AMAZON.CO.UK - £30.91.
BUY FROM JACKSONS (UK) - £9.00.






Saturday 25 February 2017

Wallace-Seymour Extra Fine Acrylics

Ok so this was a BIT of an impromptu one! I've had a small selection of some of the more unique colours from this range, like the specially sourced minerals that you just can't get in any of the commercial, mass-market artists' acrylic ranges, so I wasn't going to post a review of them owing to a slight lack of things to show you really...however, my three Wallace-Seymour Watercolour Videos (Early, Artist and 18th Century - and I do hope to do the Vintage range very soon too!) have been SO popular this week that I couldn't not get something up on these paints too! I popped out at lunchtime and picked up a few more tubs of paint so I had enough to run this video. My local art shop is The Art Side in Plymouth and the owner first got me into Wallace-Seymour (then Pip Seymour) Extra Fine Acrylics some years ago - and they stock many colours in the range.

First of all, I need to point out, Wallace-Seymour products are an absolute labour of love - no other way to put it. Many are literally handmade, and a lot of the pigments are dug up by the owners and milled in small batches - so you get a lot of very novel and unique colours - and pigments you will literally never see in another brand ever ever ever. Cool huh? The acrylics are sold in jars of 125mL as standard - but you can get 250mL, 500mL and larger too - or for the benefit of my readers in the USA, 125mL is a half cup, or about 4.25 US fluid ounces.

Let's consider prices a bit - the paints come in 4 series, as often the case and here are the prices from Turner's for 125mL jars: 

£9.00 - Series 1 - this is mostly phthalocyanines, quinacridones and so on, and ultramarines.
£9.75 - Series 2 - mostly earth colours etc.
£10.95 - Series 3 - metallic colours, dioxazines etc.
£34.50 - Series 4 - this is where it gets special - genuine cadmiums, cobalts, unusual and unique earths etc.

Let's do a decent comparison of pricing first of all - I've taken a common colour from each series, and compared them with the CRYLA professional acrylic line from Daler and Rowney and the Heavy Body line from Golden. I've considered pigment just to see if we're paying like-for-like. The RRPs I have quoted are - for Wallace-Seymour - from Turner's - and for CRYLA and Golden, from Jackson's (who sell most of them at far below the RRP and have great sales too!).

Series 1
Phthalocyanine Blue (£9.00, 125mL), 
PB 15:1 Phthalocyanine Blue RS (Copper Phthalocyanine)
Normalised price, 7.2p/mL.
Compare with CRYLA:
Phthalocyanine Blue Red Shade (£8.25, 75mL), 
PB 15:1 Phthalocyanine Blue RS (Copper Phthalocyanine)
Normalised price, 11.0p/mL. 
Compare with GOLDEN:
Phthalocyanine Blue Red Shade (£19.95, 150mL), 
PB 15:1 Phthalocyanine Blue RS (Copper Phthalocyanine)
Normalised price, 13.3p/mL.
So, Wallace-Seymour is the most economical, with Golden being the most expensive. Structurally, they all have the same single-pigment, but obviously differ in their vehicle.

Series 2
Payne's Grey (£9.75, 125mL), 
PB29 Ultramarine Blue
PBk7 Lamp Black
PR101 Red Iron Oxide (Synthetic)
Normalised price, 7.8p/mL.
Compare with CRYLA:
Payne's Grey (£7.25, 75mL),
PB29 Ultramarine Blue
PBk11 Mars Black
Normalised price, 9.7p/mL.
Compare with GOLDEN:
Payne's Grey (£16.45, 150mL),
PB29 Ultramarine Blue
PBk7 Lamp Black
Normalised price, 10.9p/mL.
So, Wallace-Seymour is again the most economical, similar to Series 1. W-S's composition adds PR101, but is otherwise the same as Golden's but there is a big difference in price. 

Series 3
Dioxazine Purple (£10.95, 125mL)
PV23 Dioxazine Violet
PR122 Quinacridone Red
Normalised price, 8.8p/mL.
Compare with CRYLA:
Deep Violet (Dioxazine Purple, £11.25, 75mL)
PV23 Dioxazine Violet
Normalised price, 15.0p/mL.
Compare with GOLDEN:
Dioxazine Violet (£26.50, 150mL)
PV23 Dioxazine Violet
Normalised price, 17.6p/mL.
Ok, so this time Wallace-Seymour is cheapest again, but I am going to assume this is because they've adulterated the paint with Quin. Red to save money (Dioxazine Violet is very costly) - though it is possibly added to enrich the tone, though I doubt it - when one buys Dioxazine Violet, one WANTS the classic black-purple like an aubergine, right?

Series 4
Cobalt Blue Genuine (£34.50, 125mL)
PB28 Cobalt Blue
Normalised price, 27.6p/mL.
Compare with CRYLA:
Cobalt Blue (£11.25, 75mL)
PB28 Cobalt Blue
Normalised price, 15.0p/mL.
Compare with GOLDEN:
Cobalt Blue (£32.95, 150mL)
PB28 Cobalt Blue
Normalised price, 22.0p/mL.
Now in this case, the Wallace-Seymour version s the most costly, but it is not much different to Golden. They all use single pigment true Cobalt Blue and there is no adulteration with cheaper pigments.

In my accompanying video (below), I make consideration of the properties of these paints versus other lines - I LOVE the very unique Series 4 Oxford Bluestone and so on paints - the textures are amazing. The Part 2 review (in a few weeks) will show what they're like in use and when dried down. If you like what you see and want to buy these beautiful Wallace-Seymour Extra Fine Acrylics, you can buy them from lots of independent art stores around the United Kingdom. If you are from outside of the UK, you can by them from Turners Art Supplies - BUT YOU MUST READ the information on my previous posts about how to order from Turners if you live outside of the UK.




Wednesday 22 February 2017

Wallace-Seymour 18th Century Watercolours 'Four Humors' life drawing set

Well, I was kind of blown away by these and I've found myself playing with them 3-4 times since I recorded my review 24h ago! 

Wallace-Seymour created these paints in a facsimile of an 18th century watercolour vehicle - viz. gum tragacanth, gum senegal and honey. If you want to know more about these gums, look at my post on their Early Watercolours line. They are hand-formed into rounds and a depression is made in the top for one's water to go into - which retains the thumbprint of the person who made them- and then left to air dry. I refer to these as "watercolour rounds" since they're not like pans or even in pans! Wallace-Seymour calls them 'discs' but I don't like that tbh as they're much less regular or industrial, which is what 'disc' implies to me.

They sell these in 3 sets and they are not available as open stock. You can only get them from Turners Art Supplies - I've added pigment information where I know it, and you can download a full breakdown of this pigment information with detailed annotations and lightfastness of the pigments and so on, as a convenient PDF reference list.
The Turner Palette (£96.00, 12 rounds). This set is designed to replicate Turner's palette, and comprises:
Gamboge Natural (NY24 Gamboge); Burgundy Yellow Ochre (PY43 Natural Yellow Iron Oxide); Burgundy Apricot Ochre; Burgundy Red Ochre; Madder Lake Natural (NR8 Alizarin Crimson); Blue Verditer; Oxford Mudstone (Davy's Grey); Azurite (PB30 Copper Carbonate (Basic), Natural); Ultramarine Ashes (PB29 Ultramarine, from lapis lazuli); Indigo Natural (NB1 Indigo); Green Earth (natural clay from Oxfordshire, UK); Malachite (PG39 Copper Carbonate (Basic), Natural).
The Grand Tour Palette (£120.00, 12 rounds). This set is inspired by colours one might see on the traditional 'grand tour' of Europe that many 18th century artists took:
Gamboge Natural (NY24 Gamboge); Oxford Ochre (natural clay collected in Oxfordshire, UK); Oxford Bluestone; Oxford Mudstone (Davy's Grey); Madder Lake Natural (NR8 Alizarin Crimson); Cinnabar Natural (from Tuscany); Vermillion Genuine (PR106 Vermillion, Genuine); Bloodstone Grey (mix of Oxford Mudstone, Hematite (PR102) and Lapis Lazuli (PB29), essentially a mimic of Payne's Grey); Indigo Natural (NB1 Indigo); Malachite (PG39 Copper Carbonate (Basic), Natural); Azurite (PB30 Copper Carbonate (Basic), Natural); Lapis Lazuli (PB29 Ultramarine, natural).
The Four Humors Set (£24.00, 4 rounds). This set is inspired by body fluids! Back in the day, medics believed that the emotions were caused by the specific volumes of four liquids (humors) in the body - and having too much of any lead to an affliction: Blood, Yellow Bile, Black Bile and Phlegm - which we still hear today in the form of four personality types: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic and Phlegmatic! This set is really intended for life-drawing and it invokes the 3 colours (sanguine, black and white) of the en trois crayons style, popular with the Old Masters in their studies [one draws in sanguine then adds high and lowlights with the white and black, respectively], with the addition of an ochre.
Sarti White (PW18 Chalk), Vine Black (PBk8), Burgundy Yellow Ochre (PY43 Natural Yellow Iron Oxide), Cumbrian Red Hematite (PR102 Natural Red Iron Oxide).

I bought the 'Four Humours' set out of my (well, my business!) own pocket for this review - Turners Of Manchester and Wallace-Seymour have no affiliation to me and I don't get any commission on sales - so this review is totally impartial, believe me! 

If you want to buy them, use the links on the prices in the descriptions above - if you are outside the UK, please make sure you read the buying information at the end of this post.

Like the Early Watercolours line, you need to activate them with hot water by adding a little to the depression on the top. I recommend you do that with a pipette or a synthetic brush you know is ok with hot water (squirrel mops and anything with goat hair WILL shed if you put them in hot water!). After about 5-10 minutes, the paint softens and a bit of gentle mixing in the well with a synthetic brush (don't ruin a sable one!) will loosen the paint and form a strong wash. As you use this up, just keep adding more warm water, though to be honest, after a while, cold water is just fine.

The colours - oh my! It's not often I get excited by a yellow ochre but this one has amazing texture and is more like a Gold Ochre really - it has an inner light and warmth. The white is very pale but don't be fooled - it dries more opaque by far - and it makes lovely mixes with the other colours. The sanguine red is a beautiful granulating and very red colour - less brown than many sanguines and again, SO much depth! The vine black - this was a shock to me - it's a deep, dark indigo blue and has a lot of texture. You can actually use them as three earth primaries!!! The earth yellow and earth red make a good, Burnt Sienna-type earth orange; the earth yellow and earth blue make a Terre Verte-like earth green and the earth red and the earth blue make a beautiful soft lavender-grey. So much experimenting still to do though!!! The pigment load is REALLY high and these are going to last me a very long time, which at £6 per round, which I think each is equivalent to 2-3 full-pans, they are amazing value. Pip and Rebecca have put a lot of work into some beautiful products that I've honestly loved using and they feel like a labour of love: they only sell through small businesses like Turners Art Supplies or L. Cornelissen & Son, and they don't hike the price up without reason - they seem to have a small but very loyal following and I count myself amongst that.

You can find out more and see me doodling with them in my video review, which is at the bottom of this post.


If you want to buy these paints...
...then you need to visit the Cornelissen website and buy them from there. If you wanted the 18th Century, Vintage or Artists' lines, you will need to visit Turners Art Materials (who WILL ship outside of the UK but you will need to contact them by EMAIL and NOT place an order on the website - if you run into issues, you can tell them that The Spin Doctor had confirmation from them on Twitter 21st February 2017 - if need be, you can show them their own tweet which I've linked.).
Alternatively, if you're interested in any of the Wallace-Seymour mediums for oil painting, you can buy them from Jackson's in the UK, which ship worldwide, I believe.

You can also buy Pip Seymour's fantastic book The Artist's Handbook from Amazons UK, USA or Canada - but don't worry if these widgets show crazy prices, there are usually more reasonable ones once you get to the website.








Tuesday 21 February 2017

Wallace-Seymour Artists' Watercolours (Turner's Exclusive Line)

Well, I honestly wasn't expecting to enjoy these and I picked out a random selection of 11 colours just to see what they were like - I was NOT disappointed, they're lovely!!! These are the colours I picked up and the prices I paid in February 2017:

Cadmium Yellow Middle (£7.80) - PY35 Cadmium Yellow (Cadmium zinc sulfide)
Cadmium Red Middle (£7.80) - PR108 Cadmium Red (Cadmium sulfoselenide)
Ultramarine Blue Deep (£7.45) - PB29 Ultramarine Blue
Ultramarine Pink (£7.45) - PR259 Ultramarine Pink
Ultramarine Red (£7.45) - PV15 Ultramarine Violet
Verona Green Earth (£6.50) - PG7 Phthalocyanine Green (Blue Shade) + PBr7 Brown Iron Oxide
Bohemian Green Earth (£7.45) - PG23 Green Earth
Burnt Sienna (£6.50) - PBr7 Brown Iron Oxide
Pozzuolii Earth (£6.50) - PR101 Synthetic Red Iron Oxide
Cinabrese (£6.50) - PW4 Zinc White + PY43 Natural Yellow Iron Oxide + PR83 Alizarin Crimson.
Permanent Green Very Light (£7.45) - PY3 Hansa Yellow 10G + PG7 Phthalocyanine Green (Blue Shade)

They are sold as FULL PANS which makes them really good value considering even the cadmium pigments are under £8 each - the cobalts are a little more at £10.95 each - when you consider how much Winsor & Newton Professional full-pans are, this is really good value. 

They lift from the pan as easily as Schmincke paints even with a slightly damp squirrel-hair mop, as they use a vehicle of gum senegal and honey (see my Wallace-Seymour Vintage Watercolour post for more information on that).


If you want to buy these paints...
...then you need to visit the Turners Art Materials website and look up the Artists' line. Turners WILL ship outside of the UK but you will need to contact them by EMAIL and NOT place an order on the website - if you run into issues, you can tell them that The Spin Doctor had confirmation from them on Twitter 21st February 2017 - if need be, you can show them their own tweet which I've linked.).
Alternatively, if you're interested in any of the Wallace-Seymour mediums for oil painting, you can buy them from Jackson's in the UK, which ship worldwide, I believe.

You can also buy Pip Seymour's fantastic book The Artist's Handbook from Amazons UK, USA or Canada - but don't worry if these widgets show crazy prices, there are usually more reasonable ones once you get to the website.


You can also buy Pip Seymour's fantastic book The Artist's Handbook from Amazons UK, USA or Canada - but don't worry if these widgets show crazy prices, there are usually more reasonable ones once you get to the website.






Wallace-Seymour Early Watercolours (Cornelissen exclusive line)

I have wanted to try this line for an AGE but I finally got my act together! Wallace-Seymour (previously Pip Seymour) sell a range of (very) fine art materials and therein are 4 principle watercolour lines:


Over the next week or so, I'll be uploading reviews of the first 3 but I have yet to try the final product. These paints are almost all hand-made (to various degrees) and in many cases, the pigments are dug by hand by Pip Seymour and Rebecca Wallace - how cool is that?!

From the Early Watercolours line (which you can only get from L. Cornelissen & Son Ltd in London), I picked a Genuine Carmine Lake (cool red), a Genuine Vermilion (warm red), Genuine Lapis Lazuli (warm blue), Oxford Ochre (earth yellow), Oxford Mudstone (earth neutral) and Malachite (cool green), just to see what they were like. They are manufactured from very high quality historic pigments in a vehicle composed of gum senegal*, gum tragacanth** and honey, which sets very hard indeed and is quite unlike anything you're used to!
* Gum senegal is the gum from Acacia senegal (L.) Willd., which is sometimes called 'gum acacia' or 'Kordofan gum arabic' or 'Sudan gum arabic', but for clarity, I always refer to it as "gum senegal" as this is less ambiguous and won't be confused with gum arabic sensu stricto, which is from the tree Vachellia seyal Delile (P. J. H. Hurter), basonym Acacia seyal Delile.
** Gum tragacanth is the gum from various Astrogalus spp. L.

As well as seeing my findings in my video review (see below!), I've also done a detailed overview of the paints in this Early Watercolour line over in my Downloads section. You can print this and keep it for future reference, if you need it, and it should have enough space to use it for swatching your paints onto.

Pro-tip!
You need to use warm water the first few times that you use these paints or some colours are very hard to lift. I would recommend you use a synthetic brush or even a hog bristle one those first few times to lift the paint into the water from the half-pan and then, after a bit of effort, you'll have a good pool of colour even a fine sable will be fine with. Pip Seymour himself gave me this advice and I feel it really should be included in the packaging!

If you want to buy these paints...
...then you need to visit the Cornelissen website and buy them from there. If you wanted the 18th Century, Vintage or Artists' lines, you will need to visit Turners Art Materials (who WILL ship outside of the UK but you will need to contact them by EMAIL and NOT place an order on the website - if you run into issues, you can tell them that The Spin Doctor had confirmation from them on Twitter 21st February 2017 - if need be, you can show them their own tweet which I've linked.).
Alternatively, if you're interested in any of the Wallace-Seymour mediums for oil painting, you can buy them from Jackson's in the UK, which ship worldwide, I believe.

You can also buy Pip Seymour's fantastic book The Artist's Handbook from Amazons UK, USA or Canada - but don't worry if these widgets show crazy prices, there are usually more reasonable ones once you get to the website.



Wednesday 15 February 2017

Schmincke Horadam 12-half-pan Palette Review (Part 1)

Coming tonight (for me anyway - Wed 15th February 2017, 2100h GMT, 1600h EST, 1500h CST, 1300h PST; Thu 16th February 2017, 0500h AWST, 0800h AEDT), is the first instalment of my review of the Schmincke Horadam 12-half-pan set - once it goes live I'll link it from this post. This set is BEAUTIFUL and has exceptional flow and wets SO easily. They are poured pans, not extruded, and look so pretty once they are all unwrapped - well, you'll see for yourself in the video I guess! Schmincke are a high-end German watercolour house and make stunning products with an exceptional range of colours. Whilst I normally prefer tube paints, I was pleased to try these in half-pans because The Frugal Crafter has recently reviewed the tube versions, so we each got to experience something a little different. This set has already migrated into my work bag with some watercolour postcards in case I catch a good sunset on my way home, so I can really road-test them before my Part 2 review in a few weeks, which will explore how they stand-up next to other brands and little tricks I've learned with them and so on.

The 12-half-pan set contains the basic colours you really need for en plein air in most any location - a cool and a warm of each yellow, red, blue and green, a yellow earth, a red earth, a brown and a black - and they are: Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, Permanent Carmine, Cadmium Red Light, Prussian Blue, Finest Ultramarine, Phthalo Green, Permanent Green Olive, Yellow Ochre, English-Venetian Red, Sepia and Ivory Black. All are single-pigment pace the Permanent Green Olive (2 pigments) and the Sepia (3 pigments). You also get a Size 5 Round Da Vinci travel brush, which is pretty decent.

If you want to buy this set, you can do so from:
Amazon USA: US$191.31
Amazon UK: £59.76 £54.01 
Amazon Canada: CDN$170.92 CND$142.96
DickBlick.com: U$227.55 US$155.59 [NB: this is the set of full pans, not half pans, which means this is one KILLER deal - not only 31% off of the list-price but even cheaper than the half pan set usually is and TWICE the amount of paint!]
Jackson's Art Supplies: £63.19 £55.00 £49.50 [as well as their normal amazing rate, they have an extra 15% off of Schmincke Horadam products right now!]

If the above is a little out of your price range, they have a near-identical student set (Schmincke Akademie) with a lower pigment load, effectively, which is much more economical. I have not tried this set, but if you want me to, please leave a comment and I'll look into it, but I thought I would link in here for those who like the paints but want a more economical option:
Amazon USA: US$69.99
Amazon UK: £30.86
Amazon Canada: N/A
DickBlick.com: N/A
Jackson's Art Supplies: N/A




Another vendor to help our UK customers

In demand from the now c. 20% of my audience who are in Canada, I added Amazon Canada Associates links to all of my new content so that you could find things very easily after watching my videos and could shop in a way that gave something back, which several of you said you could not do. 

Whilst I'm happy to do this, I realise that Amazon and similar companies have buying-power that smaller companies can never match,a and I want to give smaller companies a chance too, even when they're not the cheapest option, as I know many of you - myself included - will shop in a smaller shop given the choice. As such, I've added Jackson's Art Supplies, who I've found to be a really friendly and helpful shop and really swift with orders. They also always seem to have good deals on and you get to the checkout and find a free tube of paint or similar. I like that about them and I trust them, so I decided to start linking to them as well - but they turned out to have an Affiliates Scheme, which I've of course signed up to. You will pay the exact same prices as if you went straight to their website, but I get 5% commission, effectively, on anything you buy from them, if you went to their website via a link or banner from my website and then filled your cart and placed your order. Note, you have to click through then add items to your cart of they're not counted.

So, from now on, all item lists under my videos and on my website will have links for Amazon UK, USA and Canada; DickBlick.com, and Jackson's Art Supplies, which should suit everyone's needs in terms of my major customer demographics.



Tuesday 14 February 2017

Coming up in February

First of all, please follow me on my new Twitter account - you can find me at @spin_doctor_art and it is the place to look to see what is coming soon as early bird info goes on Twitter usually!

I thought I would post just a few hints of what is to come this month since I have recorded a whole bunch of reviews - which now have a Part A (unboxing, first impressions etc) and Part B (a few weeks later with more detail having used them a fair bit):

* Schmincke Horadam 12 half-pan palette. Many of you have asked me to look at a Schmincke product and so here it is. A safety warning - this palette has razor sharp edges! If anyone has similar issues with Schmincke palettes can you please post in the comments and let me know?

* Wallace-Seymour watercolours. I have three series from them - their artists' watercolours in full pans, early watercolours in half pans and some super special ones with no pans at all - watch this space!

* Daniel Smith watercolours. Again, a lot of people have asked and I caved in owning to Kathleen and Jacqueline sending me the Essentials set which I really enjoyed roadtesting. I have the Primatek set and Alvaro Castagnet set as well as some of the fashionable mixes to demonstrate and talk to you about.

* Dylusions by Dyan Reaveley. Two words: art journal. One of the best I've ever seen. I've been trying to destroy it with inks and paints for months and it is still going - this IS a new area for me so I've had to kind of learn to art journal to fully road test it for you!

DON'T FORGET: we have two competitions running - one for a FREE set of Spectrum Noir Alcohol Markers in either the GREENS or the WARM GREYS sets AND the Tim Holtz Distress Crayons "Set 2"! All you have to do is subscribe to my channel and website and go to the relevant video on my channel and simply tell me why you want to win them - and give me a thumbs up whilst you're there of course ;)

Oh and happy Valentine's Day (bah humbug!)
The Spin Doctor

Saturday 11 February 2017

What happened when I sent The Frugal Crafter some NEW STUFF!

If you've not already seen it, check out Lindsay's video from last week (at the bottom of this post) in which she unboxed some stuff that I sent to her and went on to create a beautiful picture of a butterfly using it! I've embedded it at the bottom of this post but as so many of you have asked me about the various products I sent to her and where to get them, I thought I'd curate most of them all in one place for you:

Derwent Tinted Charcoal Pencils
I sent Mrs W a random selection of pencils based on 10 that I really enjoyed using - but they're more economical if you buy them in tins online, at least. In your local art store you might see them in open stock instead. They are lovely and the formulation is a mix of powdered charcoal, clay and high-quality pigments. They are much like a pastel but smudge more like charcoal - they go onto the page smooth as silk and you can create beautiful effects - they are dry but not chalky or scratchy and I've found them a joy to use!
Set of 6 (Burnt Orange, Lavender, Ocean Deep, Forest Pine, Peat, Natural)
Amazon UK [£6.91]; Amazon USA [US$16.99 US$14.53]; Amazon Canada [CDN$22.00 CDN$18.11]; DickBlick [US$16.99 US$11.89]; Jackson's [£8.75 £7.30]

Set of 12 (Sand, Glowing Embers, Lavender, Mountain Blue, Ocean Deep, Green Moss, Dark Moss, Driftwood, Peat, Natural, White, Charcoal Dark)
Amazon UK [£18.36 £14.42]; Amazon USA [US$21.23]; Amazon Canada [CDN$47.00 CDN$34.93]; DickBlick [US$35.99 US$25.19]; Jackson's [£20.50 £17.10]

Set of 24 (Sand, Burnt Orange, Sunset Pink, Glowing Embers, Heather Mist, Burnt Embers, Lavender, Thistle, Bilberry, Elderberry, Mountain Blue, Ocean Deep, Slate, Forest Pine, Green Moss, Dark Moss, Driftwood, Peat, Burnt Earth, Natural, White, Charcoal Light, Charcoal Medium, and Charcoal Dark)
Amazon UK [£36.51 £26.13]; Amazon USA [US$31.12]; Amazon Canada [CDN$71.49 CDN$42.91]; DickBlick [US$71.99 US$50.39]; Jackson's [£40.75 £34.00]

Pentel Aquash Waterbrushes

I sent Mrs W the 3 pack (Small, Medium, Broad), but I had unpacked it for ease of shipment. These are my favourite waterbrushes and I honestly have had no real issues with them in years of use!

Amazon UK [£19.94 £7.40], Amazon USA [US$13.15], Amazon Canada [CDN$28.86 CDN$22.12], DickBlick [US$22.20 US$18.79]; Jackson's [£20.00 £18.00]

Winsor & Newton Artist's Watercolour - 550 Quinacridone Violet
This is one of the Twilight Set of limited edition colours and a lot of you liked it when Lindsay used this in her painting and asked about it - get it whilst it lasts as it is no longer being made. PV55 Quinacridone Purple is the pigment, it's transparent and staining and lightfast and BEAUTIFUL! Get them while you last - these are the very last stocks out there of these colours!!!

5mL tube of 550 Quinacridone Violet
Amazon UK [N/A], Amazon USA [US$12.22], Amazon Canada [CDN$32.82], DickBlick [US$12.25 US$7.35]; Jackson's [£6.70 £5.00]

Twilight Set of Limited Edition tubes, 6 x 5mL (Quinacridone Violet, Sanguine Red, Dumont's Blue, Chromium Black, Aqua Green and Cobalt Green Deep)
Amazon UK [£34.98], Amazon USA [US$70.39], Amazon Canada [N/A], DickBlick [N/A]; Jackson's [N/A]

If you want a close match to the purple and can no longer get hold of it in your area, you could try this close match:

Daniel Smith 225 Quinacridone Purple (PV55), 5mL tube
Amazon UK [£7.03], Amazon USA [US$10.26], Amazon Canada [CDN$37.51], DickBlick [US$10.69 US$6.95]; Jackson's [£7.99 £6.80]

Bockingford "Rough" Watercolour Paper
I had sent Mrs W a range of papers in this care-package but the one she used in the video below was Bockingford in the Rough texture and it was a superheavy paper - 250lb (525gsm) - which is the same paper I prefer to use day to day. It's a chemical pulp (wood) paper and can really take a lot of water - I love it. At 250lb, it is only available in Imperial loose sheets, but these links are for the Rough 140lb (300gsm) paper in pads (9" by 12"), which are an economical way to try this very rough-textured, strong paper. I do recommend you stretch it before use in the 140lb incarnation.

Amazon UK [£10.52], Amazon USA [US$14.39], Amazon Canada [CDN$19.21], DickBlick [N/A]; Jackson's [£9.12 £7.90]








Jane Davenport "Petite Palettes" in "Neutrals" Review

Firstly, while I remember, follow me on Twitter!

I did a breakdown of the pigments used to make this set a short time ago and my views on those, as I could not get hold of this set in the UK to be able to review it. One of my community - Paula from Florida - dropped me an email to tell me she'd seen it at a great price in a bigbox art store in her local area and had picked up a spare set for me, which is an incredibly kind thing to do - thanks Paula! As soon as it arrived, I set about reviewing it the same day! She also sent me some other goodies, which I will review very soon!

If you want to get this set for yourself, your best bet is Jane Davenport's website (which has no affiliate scheme so I don't get any commission on sales through that link), but I have seen it on Amazon USA as well. Jane told me that she's hoping to have it on sale from a UK vendor in the next couple of weeks, so I hope that will make it easier for me to get the "Brights" set and that it will make life easier for those of you out there in Europe who want to get them and who don't want to pay the huge postage from Australia.

My video review of this product is my first in my new format! I am now doing all reviews of watercolours, at least, in this new format of a Part A and Part B pair of videos. Part A will cover the unboxing, the background, the pigment information, the swatching etc, and then a few weeks later when I've really had time to play with a product, a Part B video will show what I've done with it, tips and tricks for getting the most out of it, how it plays with other supplies and so on. I'm hoping this new format will be more useful to you, and it will be two videos each of 30-60 minutes in length, so absolutely packed with even more information on getting the most from your new products!


Sunday 5 February 2017

Prima Watercolor Confections: Shimmering Lights set

I've finally uploaded my review of this set! As I say in the video, if you want to know the names for the colours in the whole series now that they all have a name and a number - you can find out here.

If you want to buy these sets in the USA, Canada or UK you can do so using these links and I'll get back a small fraction of Amazon's proceeds (but you don't pay a penny more than you would normally). All these proceeds get reinvested in my channel and I don't take a person profit at the moment. 

BUY SHIMMERING LIGHTS FROM AMAZON UK for £25.98.

BUY SHIMMERING LIGHTS FROM AMAZON USA for US$23.98 - this is where I got mine as they delivered to the UK. The raw price IS cheaper than from Amazon UK, BUT the delivery and customs fee could easily be $10 to the UK, but it was more economical for me as there were other items in the same order.

BUY SHIMMERING LIGHTS FROM AMAZON CANADA for Can$45.54.

If you're interested in the PASTEL DREAMS, TROPICALS or DECADENT PIES sets, you can find the information on the former in this post, which links to information on the latter two sets.