Christmas 2017 Gifts For Watercolourists

Buying for an artist isn't always easy, and with Christmas 2017 coming up and every shop in the market selling things at amazing discounts, I wanted to pull together some ideas for gifts for watercolour painters - most are items I have reviewed in the past 12 months but others are "old faithful" high quality products. Rather than day-to-day supplies like general paper blocks etc, I've focussed on things someone may not own or even consider so they can get a bit of a surprise with their gifts!

Jackson's Artist Watercolours - Set of 12 full pans
(£47.70 or EUR54.21 or US$63.78)
I've reviewed this set recently and absolutely love it. Normally priced at £53, it is current discounted. You can watch my review of it here.
[not suitable for vegans]

Daniel Smith PrimaTek Watercolours - Set of 6 tubes
(£31.50 or EUR34.66 or US$40.78)
This is a set of 6 paints formulated from finely ground natural minerals - Rhodonite, Amethyst, Jadeite, Piemontite, Hematite and Mayan Blue (a mix of copal, indigo and clay). They're a lot of fun and quite different to most watercolours as they have extreme granulation, for example. The set normally sells for £40.90. You can watch my review of the Primatek colours here.
[not suitable for vegans]

Golden Qor Watercolours - Introductory Set of 12 tubes
(£43.20 or EUR49.09 or US$57.76)
The Qor watercolours from Golden are unusual in that they use an artificial binder in lieu of gum arabic, and have very strong flow. They are particularly popular at the moment, and as well as open stock, a number of sets are available, of which this is probably the most useful as a gift. With an RRP of almost £59.96, this is an excellent price point! You can watch my review of the 24-set that contains all of the colours in this set here.

Kuretake Gansai Tambi Japanese Watercolours Set of 12 large pans
(£15.48 or EUR17.60 or US$20.69)
These Eastern watercolours (stickier and more opaque than Western ones - very good on rice paper and for sumi-e) are very popular with card makers and this set of 12 very large pans is a good way to try them out. With an RRP of £20.06.
[not suitable for vegans]

Lutea Extra Fine Watercolours - Individual 9mL Tubes
The Lutea brand are entirely made from flower pigments and are exceptionally beautiful and may be a nice, unusual gift for an experienced watercolourist. The colours that may make the best gifts are as follows as they would make a nice primary triad, plus an unusual deep violet as a bonus feature. All are rated 5-6 on the blue wool scale (1-8, 8 being best) for lightfastness, which is around 3 on the I-IV scale many manufacturers use.
Violet (Logwood, NBk3 and NBk4) £19.50 or EUR22.16 or US$26.06
Red (Madder, NR9) £17.10 or EUR19.45 or US$22.86
Blue (Indigo, NB1) £21.50 or EUR24.44 or US$28.74
Yellow (Goldenrod, N/A) £21.50 or EUR24.44 or US$28.74
[not suitable for vegans]

Schmincke Horadam - Set of 12 half pans
(£58.00 or EUR65.93 or US$77.52)
These are beautiful fine-quality paints from Germany and are amongst the best watercolours in the world. This little palette contains 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 Brown and Ivory Black, along with a little travel brush and a swatch card. They have very high pigment loads and are actually good value - they have an RRP of £68.35. You can watch my review of this little palette here.
[not suitable for vegans]

Nevskaya Palitra White Nights - Set of 12 full pans
(£15.60 or EUR17.70 or US$20.80)
White Nights paints are of very fine quality and are perfect for beginners and experienced painters as they are artist-quality but very economical. They are comparable in flow, colour and fine quality to Schmincke in many ways but they are far more economical. This set of 12 full pans has an RRP of £25.95. You can watch my review of some White Nights colours here.
[not suitable for vegans]

Jackson's Kolinsky watercolour brushes - set of 3
(£15.50 or EUR17.68 or US$20.78)
Really best suited to the more advanced painter, or the novice who is wanting to move upwards. Kolinsky is the non plus ultra of natural fibre watercolour brushes, and this set from Jackson's is nicely presented in modern, classy packaging and comprises the following range of sizes which are particularly useful for those painting fine detail such as in botanical paintings:
Round Size 1
Round Size 5
Round Size 7
[not suitable for vegans]

Jackson's Icon sable-synthetic watercolour brushes - set of 3
(£16.50 or EUR18.82 or US$22.12)
Suitable for beginners or advanced painters alike. These brushes blend sable with a pored-synthetic that gives the brushes snap and strength so they're not as delicate/fragile as pure kolinsky or sable can be, so they are better suited to beginners who haven't quite got to grips with brushwork yet. This is a lovely versatile set, with a good sized quill (pointed mop) for washes and loose work, a round for precision and a lovely flat that is SO good for glazing! You can watch my review of this set here.
Round Size 8
Quill Size 2 (aka Pointed Wash)
Flat 1/2" 
[not suitable for vegans]

Jackson's Speciality badger/squirrel watercolour brushes - set of 3
(£16.80 or EUR19.17 or US$22.54)
These brushes might be nice for a very experienced painter as they're the kinds of morphologies that you can get away without but once you have them, they make such a difference! They are specifically designed for painting foliage and in landscape painting but they're also useful for seascapes and in abstract work. The fan and comb are both made from badger hair, which is very stiff and excellent for making tight little marks when used vertically. The dagger is made of squirrel hair, which will paint lovely long lines and hold a long of paint - it's a sign-writing brush sensu stricto, and it's super-useful for painting fences, blades of grass and anything you'd normally use a rigger for - this is even sharper:
Stippler Fan, Medium
Foliage Comb, 1/2"
Dagger, 3/8"
[not suitable for vegans]

Jackson's Raven watercolour quill (pointed mop) - VEGAN FRIENDLY!
(£17.20 or EUR19.58 or US$23.01)
This is a totally vegan brush - the fibre is a synthetic designed to mimic squirrel hair so it will hold a lot of water - it's also a WHOPPING brush at 1.6cm in diameter, and, being a quill (pointed mop), there is no glue, oh, and the 'quill' is plastic. It's a lovely huge brush and would help loosening up and painting in a more expressive style, and is suitable for all levels of painter.
It comes in many sizes, but I'm recommending as a gift:
Quill, Size 6

Saunders Waterford Cold Press 7.5" by 11.0" 25 sheet spiral pad of 140lb
(£17.40 or EUR19.80 or US$23.28)
Saunders Waterford is a beautiful 100% cotton paper that the Royal Watercolour Society has approved. It is internally sized with gelatine and surface sized, so your colours will look vibrant and washes will stay wet for longer. It's a robust paper that you can scrub on with lifting brushes without causing any damage. I've reviewed this paper previously and shown what it's capable of and I recommend this as my personal favourite paper. I personally use the Rough finish in the 300lb weight, but I think the Cold Press finish is better for most artists as Rough isn't for everyone, so that's what I've picked out in this useful spiral bound book that could be used as a journal or for working on paintings all on one specific theme. Perfect for advanced painters as well as novices that have already moved onto cotton papers - I'd not suggest this for someone not yet used to cotton in the context of being a good gift. 

Product Review: Jackson's Studio and Icon Watercolour Brush Sets

STOP PRESS (again)! A little notice for my viewers based outside of the United Kingdom in particular! The brushes in this review are all sold by Jackson's, and they have FREE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING on brush-only orders valued at £20 (US$27, CAN$34, AUS$35, €23) or over! That is a fantastic deal in my book and should mean you get things well in time for Christmas if you're planning to buy gifts! You can read more about their shipping policies, restrictions and information here.

Continuing from my review of Jackson's Artist Watercolours that I posted yesterday, I have also reviewed two sets of Jackson's Watercolour Brushes from two of their brush lines as follows - I've linked to all of the sets and open stock down below the jump in the "Buy These Products" section, and I've also linked to all the other products used in the video - the paints and paper etc.

The Studio line - intended for students, lower price point, cheaper handles, 100% synthetic, vegan-friendly and come in 4 different variety packs and come as Rounds, Flats, Riggers, Pointed Rounds and One-Strokes (Long Flats). They asked me to review their Set Of 3.

The Icon line - professional quality, higher price point, very nicely balanced satin-finish handles, synthetic-sable mix using a pitted synthetic that holds more water than a standard one. Sold as a Set of 3 (which I reviewed), which I guess is designed to give you a feel of the line and to be a useful set of sizes, but are mostly sold as open stock and come as Rounds, Flats, Quills (I would call them Pointed Mops or Pointed Washes, but some folk call them Quills!) and Mottlers.

I was highly impressed with both lines and I've summarised my views a little but down below in the "Buy These Products" section of this post - but you can watch the video to see how they compare with other brands - I compared them with - I've missed out the super-economy craft sable brushes that I tried out:
ProArte Polar White, Aquafine Goat Mops, Aquafine Sable, Winsor and Newton Series 7 Kolinsky, ProArte Prolene, ProArte ProlenePlus, ProArte Renaissance Squirrel and Daler and Rowney Graduate line in various fibres, plus probably some others I can't remember right now, but if you saw something in the video and want to buy it, leave a comment below! 

Bottom line - I felt both were great and that the Studio line was perfect for beginners and was more or less as good as Prolene, but as they don't hold a lot of water compared to Prolene or other brands, and they are very economical, they are really beginner-friendly. I do think a beginner should start with something that they can learn the basics with, without needing to worry about water-control too much just yet. The Icon line was comparable with 100% sable brushes or ProlenePlus brushes and the round and quill came to really sharp points. I could see a use for both lines in my own work and the Studio brushes would be great for me for lifting, for glazing when I want to work quite dry and when I just need a brush I don't need to worry too much about damaging as the cost is so low!

Buy These Products

Jackson's "Studio" Watercolour Brushes
These are excellent student-grade brushes and are perfect for beginners through to novices or just folk who want an extra set of cheaper brushes that they can brutalise without too much worry about replacement costs. They're 100% synthetic and have painted wooden handles with a gloss finish. THESE BRUSHES ARE VEGAN FRIENDLY. In the accompanying video, I reviewed the Set of 3.

Set of 3 - 8 Round, 10 Round, 1/2" Flat [Jackson's: £5.50 or US$7.32]
Set of 4 - 2 Round, 4 Round, 6 Round, 4 Rigger [Jackson's: £3.30 or US$4.39]
Set of 8 - 0 Round, 6 Round, 12 Round, 1 Rigger, 1/2" Flat, 1" Flat, 1 1/2" Flat and a black nylon brush case [Jackson's: £13.25 or US$17.63]
Set of 14 - 000 Round, 2 Round, 4 Round, 6 Round, 10 Round, 16 Round, 24 Round, 0 Rigger, 2 Rigger, 4 Rigger, 1/2" Flat, 1" Flat, 2" Flat and a black nylon brush case [Jackson's: £29.50 or US$39.24]
In open stock you can buy:
Pointed Rounds, One-Strokes (Long Flats) and Riggers, Flats and Rounds, starting at as little as £1.05 (US$1.40).

Jackson's "Icon" Watercolour Brushes
These are excellent professional-grade brushes and are very good value. They are a mix of synthetic and sable - the synthetic has been treated to cover it in microscopic pits so that it holds even more water/paint, and it has very good control and snap. They have handles with a satin finish. THESE BRUSHES ARE NOT SUITABLE FOR VEGANS. In the accompanying video, I reviewed the Set of 3.

Set of 3 - 8 Round, 2 Quill (Pointed Mop), 1/2" Flat [Jackson's: £13.20 or US$17.56]
In open stock you can buy:
Pointed Rounds - Size 2 to 12, starting at £2.28 or US$3.03.
One Strokes (Long Flats) - 3mm to 25mm, starting at £2.72 or US$3.62.
Quills (pointed mops) - Size 0000000000 (10/0) to 6, starting at £3.76 or US$5.00.
Mottlers - 25mm to 75mm, starting at £7.44 or US$9.90.

Other products that I used in this video:

Bockingford 140lb A4 (roughly 12"×8") Rough Watercolour Gummed Paper Pad. 12 sheets. [Jackson's: £8.00 or US$10.65] This is the paper I use in this video, and it's my go-to day-to-day paper. Bockingford is made by St Cuthbert's Mill - the same people who brought us Saunders Waterford and Millford watercolour papers - and it is a chemical pulp (wood) paper that is pretty hard wearing and you can do a lot worse than it - it's a great paper for a beginner wanting to step upwards but who's not ready for cotton papers just yet.

Winsor and Newton French Ultramarine Watercolour Paint - PB29 Ultramarine Blue.
The ceramic Large Pan that I was using in this video is from a line that has been discontinued, but you can buy the exact same paint in a range of sizes - it is one of my favourite Ultramarines - it has a huge pigment load and a pan or tube will last you a very long time.
Half-pan [Jackson's: £5.10 or US$6.79]
Full-pan [Jackson's: £6.40 or US$8.52]
5mL tube [Jackson's: £5.10 or US$6.79]
14mL tube [Jackson's: £10.10 or US$13.44]
37mL tube [Jackson's: £17.80 or US$23.69]

Daniel Smith Moonglow - PB29 Ultramarine Blue, PG17 Hydrated Chromic Oxide, PR177 Anthraquinone Red.
This is a lovely effects-paint that looks violet, grey or black depending on how much you use, but with plenty of water it splits into pink, green and blue to varying degrees. It comes in two tube sizes and as a Paint Stick, which can be used just like a pan or can be used dry on the paper somewhat like a pastel.
5mL [Jackson's: £6.80 or US$9.05]
15mL [Jackson's: £12.80 or US$17.03]
Watercolour Paint Stick [Jackson's: £10.90 or US$14.50]

ProArte Brushes - these are the main brush types that I use for comparison in this video - alongside Dalon, Series 007 and a myriad of cheaper brands - but these are the major ones.
Prolene - these are cheaper on the whole and hold less pigment than ProlenePlus and don't come to as sharp a point in terms of Rounds, but are really useful for wetting one's paper or for washes etc. You know which you have as the ferrule is always silver for Prolene. They come in Rounds, One-Strokes (long flats), Swords, Riggers and Fans. The bristles are soft and flexible, without much snap. You can buy the full Prolene line over at Jackson's, individually or in sets - brushes start at £1.52 for a Size 0000 Round (aka 4/0 Round). THESE BRUSHES ARE VEGAN-FRIENDLY.
ProlenePlus - these are higher quality and hold more pigment than Prolene and come to a sharper point. They also have beautiful faux-teak varnished handles. You know which you have as the ferrule is always gold for ProlenePlus. They come in Rounds, One-Strokes (long flats) and Filberts, including retractable travel brushes. The bristles are firm and have good snap. You can buy the full ProlenePlus line over at Jackson's individually or in sets - brushes start at £1.76 for a Size 0000 Round (aka 4/0 Round). THESE BRUSHES ARE VEGAN-FRIENDLY.
Renaissance Squirrel - these are 100% black squirrel hair and are thus not vegan-friendly! They reach a very sharp point and hold a lot of paint or water on the belly, so you can get a lot of mileage before you need to re-load. You can buy sizes 000 (aka 3/0) to 8 from Jackson's but the line does go up to a size 20. Brushes start at £5.04 for a Size 000 (3/0).

Product Review: Jackson's Artist Watercolour full pans and tubes

STOP PRESS! I should add that Jackson's could well have a Black Friday sale of some kind this very week - well, I'm assuming so, since most companies seem to have one, anyway, so I've front loaded this post with all of the procurement info so that you don't need to dig! These paints would make an amazing Christmas gift so don't forget to shop whilst the Black Friday sales are still on! You can buy the palette with 12 full-pans (£45.05) and/or pick up individual pans to use alone or with the palette. I do recommend adding a full pan of Phthalocyanine Blue as a better cool blue that the more mid-tone Cobalt Blue, and if you're anything like me, you'll want to get a Burnt Sienna whilst you're at it!

If you want to give this set to someone under 16 or so, or who is pregnant or breastfeeding, or you're just not confident painting with heavy-metal containing paints and want some options, I would recommend you just buy 3 extra paints as non-toxic alternatives:

Swap Cadmium Yellow Light for Jackson's Yellow Light (£2.81 - PY154 Benzimidazolone Yellow 154)
Swap Cadmium Red Light for Bright Red (£2.98 - PR254 Pyrrole Red and PO43 Perinone Orange)
Swap Cobalt Blue for Phthalocyanine Blue (£2.81 - PB15 Phthalocyanine Blue)

See the end of this post for sundries like Ox Gall pans you can add to your palette to give you stronger flow exactly where and when you need it!

This is an amazing set, but if you want to make it even better, you can add a few colours for not much money at all. In the video, I suggested some extra colours you might want to add - there is space for 2 more, but you can probably remove the black and fit 3 full pans or 6 half pans (you would have to pour the latter from tubes) in, and I would suggest adding:

Burnt Sienna Pan £2.81 Tube £4.85 (PBk7 Brown Iron Oxide)
Phthalocyanine Blue Pan £2.81  Tube £4.85 (PB15 Phthalocyanine Blue)
Cobalt Violet Deep Hue Pan £2.98 Tube £5.53  (PR122 Quinacridone Red PV16 Manganese Violet)

---

It's not very often that I'm genuinely bowled over by the quality of a product, but today is one of those days! A few weeks back I contacted Jackson's in the UK to see if they would let me review their Artist Watercolours. I explained that I really like to review a Cool Red, Warm Red, Cool Yellow, Warm Yellow, Cool Blue, Warm Blue, Yellow Ochre and Burnt Sienna, as those 8 colours are what I think all beginners should start out with, and I like to be able to recommend paints to beginners, of course.

Julie at Jackson's very kindly sent me one of their 12-full-pan palettes, and she noted it had a Venetian Red instead of my preferred Burnt Sienna, so she also sent me a 21mL tube of Burnt Sienna so I could see the colour and try out their tube paints at the same time - great plan. I have also been sent 3 types of brush but they will follow in later videos.

The palette contains full pans of:
Lemon Yellow (PY3 Hansa Yellow 10G)
Cadmium Yellow Light (PY35 Cadmium zinc sulfide)
Carmine (PV19 Quinacridone Violet)
Cadmium Red Light (PR108 Cadmium selenosulfide)
Cobalt Blue (PB28 Cobalt aluminium blue spinel)
French Ultramarine (PB29 Ultramarine Blue)
Phthalo Green Deep (PG7 Phthalocyanine Green BS + PB15 Phthalocyanine Blue)
Permanent Sap Green (PB29 Ultramarine Blue + PY153 Nickel Dioxime Yellow)
Yellow Ochre (PY43 Yellow Iron Oxide [Natural])
Venetian Red (PR101 Red Iron Oxide [Synthetic] + PY43 Yellow Iron Oxide [Natural])
Burnt Umber (PBr7 Brown Iron Oxide)
Ivory Black (PBk9 Bone Black)

And they also gave me a 21-mL tube of:
Burnt Sienna (PBr7 Brown Iron Oxide)

The price point for the palette set of 12 full-pans complete with a really high-quality metal palette (with mixing surfaces that don't make your paint bead up too much!) AND a tree planted in the Highlands of Scotland by Trees For Life is £53.00 [US$70.61] but they have been reduced to £45.05 [US$60.00] recently. Now given those palettes are £12 or so on Amazon UK, you're looking at a price per full-pan of somewhere around £3.40 [US$4.53] at full price or £2.75 [US$3.66] at the discounted price - pretty hard to beat for a professional watercolour, right?! Not many companies make a charitable donation on a purchase, and I really admire Jackson's for taking the lead with that.

Most "own brand" paints are not that great - very generic, very chalky or gloopy and not fun at all. Jackson's Artist Watercolours are the polar opposite - to look at, they resemble the extruded pans of Winsor and Newton, but in use they lift as easily from the pan as Schmincke and have very similar levels of flow as Schmincke Horadam and Daniel Smith - you can see for yourself in my YouTube review video, where I go into a lot of detail about them.

If you're interested in the adjunct products I used in this video, they are:

Daler and Rowney The Langton Watercolour Paper 140lb Rough Spiral Bound Pad. [Jackson's: £7.60] This is a good quality chemical pulp paper - I use it for videos and for warm-ups and sketches - it's well made and a good option particularly for beginners who want to experience a professional paper. If you prefer a cotton paper, Daler and Rowney sell that too, and it really is a very nice paper and quite economical.
Daler and Rowney The Langton Prestige Watercolour Paper 140lb Rough Spiral Bound Pad. [Jackson's: £9.60]

ProArte 12 Round Prolene Plus Watercolour Brush [Jackson's: £8.16] Prolene Plus is my favourite synthetic brush fibre that I have found. It is based on Prolene, a form of polypropylene used worldwide as a surgical suturing thread, with a mix of different fibre thicknesses and so on to make these brushes superior to the standard Prolene line also by ProArte - they are very economical and I could not recommend them more strongly if you want a good synthetic brush. They're also very pretty, which is never a bad thing, right?! You can view the full range here.

Winsor and Newton Ox Gall 75mL [Jackson's: £5.60] I used Daler and Rowney in the video but to be honest, I prefer the W&N one for both quality and price. Ox gall is a combination of bile salts from cattle bile obtained from abattoir waste - deoxycholate and so on - and they act as a surfactant to reduce the surface tension and promote better wetting of the pigment grains - just like soap would do when washing the dishes really. If you paint on some high-end papers such as Arches by Canson or Millford by St Cuthbert's Mill that have really very hard sizing, a touch of ox gall in your water can help to wet the paper without the water beading up - of all watercolour mediums, this and Gum Arabic (below) are the most useful. Ox gall is usually sold as a solution in a bottle which can be a bit inconvenient, but if you would prefer a solid ox gall that you can keep in your palette, you can also get that - I use it en plein air a lot and these Schmincke pans of it last AGES and smell of lavender, which is nice! 
Half-Pan Schmincke Onetz [Jackson's: £3.20]
Full-Pan Schmincke Onetz [Jackson's: £4.80]
If you would prefer a vegan alternative, there is one sold under the Qor brand by Golden [Jackson's: £9.60], which is particularly popular.

Winsor and Newton Gum Arabic 75mL [Jackson's: £5.60] This is really useful for making washes smoother and it makes the colours seem more vibrant. It's the vehicle used in most paint brands - some use Gum Senegal (aka Senegalese Gum Arabic or Kordofan Gum Arabic) instead, and Qor by Golden uses Aquazol, which I've explained previously. If you think about oil painting, adding extra linseed oil (the vehicle of oil paints) into your paints gives you longer drying times, more time to work the paint, a glossy finish and a more vibrant, transparent colour - Gum Arabic added to watercolours does exactly the same thing, and I found it worked beautifully with these watercolours by Jackson's - both the pans and the tubes.

You Heard It Here First...

So, I have a few little mini-announcements to make. I've got over 2,500 subs on YouTube now, which is beyond anything I ever expected, and this month is my one year anniversary of this iteration of my YouTube presence :) I will be doing some anniversary giveaways - watch this space.

If you've not already seen it, I looked at the 35 new Schmincke colours yesterday - this (below this post) video's already been really popular and I think a lot of people are enamoured by Phthalo Sapphire (PB15:6 - the same as the Phthalo Sapphire that Winsor and Newton had in their Desert Collection) - but were struggling to find it in their area or at a good price - I've seen today that you can buy that at Jackson's as they have plenty of stock, AND they ship worldwide for reasonable prices - plus these are some killer reductions for a brand new release, right?!:

Full Pan (RRP £8.00, £6.30)
Half Pan (RRP £6.00, £4.24)
5mL Tube (RRP £6.00, £4.42)
15mL Tube (RRP £11.00, £8.74)

I wanted to let you all know about a few NEW THINGS I'm trialling to help my audience even more! I was going to do a Spin Doctor Speaks video but I decided to write it instead - I wanted to watch TV at the same time ;) I often have the TV on in the background when painting just for not having silence, or I listen to music sometimes - I did see in the comments on one of The Frugal Crafter's videos last week that a few of you like to listen to audiobooks when you're painting, which sounds like a great idea and one I am going to be trying. I noticed Amazon USA has a deal on right now for 2 free audiobooks if you sign up for a FREE 30 day trial of Audible, which I thought would be worth sharing with you all? It seems Amazon UK has a similar deal with 1 free audiobook if you sign up for a FREE 30 day trial of Audible.

The Spin Doctor's Emporium
Sadly, this is only really of use to my Amazon.com-using (USA, mostly) peeps, but it will help y'all a lot! I've set up an online store with Amazon (you can see an embryonic version - totally unformatted - under "Emporium" on my navigation bar at the top of my website) which allows me to annotate products and help direct you to things that might be useful. For example, for those who follow my Surgery series of watercolour lessons, each week's supplies will have a store page to help you grab them really quick with no effort, if you need to restock your colours. I'm going to use this to help guide you through things like which colours you need in palettes for different uses - once it goes live properly, I'll make a formal announcement on YouTube.

Postmortems with The Spin Doctor
Yeah, yeah, it's morbid, but we all have those paintings from time to time where we just don't know why it went wrong, right? You can get professional 1:1 feedback on your paintings from some online sources for up to £30 per session (US$50), but sometimes you only need to hear "you used too much water", and then it's not worth paying it. So in this new series, you will be able to submit your paintings to me online and I will show them (without names/etc!!!) on screen and talk through my thoughts for maybe 1-2 minutes on each one, once a month and only one painting per person per month. I'm going to do it to see how it goes - but if I get 500 paintings in the first month, I'm quitting right away!

The Spin Doctor's Atelier
I have a thing for flowery English and I call rooms in my appartment my "front parlour", "bedchamber" and so on, because it makes me laugh - so my studio can be an "atelier", right? (Ah TELL ee ay) In this series I'll be letting you watch me create - a little like The Spin Doctor Sits, but that's more about trying other peoples' methods/ideas to see how they work for me - but this is more about original material.

The Spin Doctor's Clinic
This is going to be a LIVE Q&A/quick-tips-demo where you ask questions and I answer them/show you things quickly - anything can happen! It'll only be once or twice a month at most until I get a feel for how useful folk are finding it.

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:

• Early Watercolours (Cornelissen Exclusive) - half pans, covered in this post.
• 18th Century Watercolours - handmade rounds, which you can find out more about here.
• Vintage Watercolours - tubes, which I will be reviewing in the future (March 2017!).
• Artist's Watercolours - full pans, which you can find out more about here.

(they also do a VERY good line in Extra Fine Acrylic Paints that you can learn more about in my article and video) 

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.

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.