Forgotten Friends Challenge: Part I

So I've already posted the rules of the game, now it's time to show my own colour selection! They are all from the Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour range:

Naples Yellow (422)
This is a mix of Titanium White (PW6) and Chrome Antimony Titanate (PBr24) and is a beautiful semi-opaque yellow, much like sand at sunset. For sand normally I would use Titanium Buff, but that's not available in this range.

Bismuth Yellow (025)
This a pure pigment - Bismuth Vanadate (PY184), which is often found in Cad Yellow Hues in cheap student sets. It's a wonderful vivid near opaque yellow but I've never found a use for it.

Indigo (322)
This is faux-indigo, made of a mix of Phthalocyanine Blue (PB15), Carbon Black (PBk6) and Quinacridone Violet (PV19). The real thing is an extract of Indigofera tinctoria L. (the true indigo), which is costly to produce, so most denim products these days are stained with synthetic indigo, which would make a much more granulating paint.

Potter's Pink (537)
This is a very heavily granulating earth pink made of Chromium Tin Silicate (PR233) - this is a very hydrophobic pigment which is why it clumps so much - I will be interested to see if adding oxgall improves this and makes it a more useful colour.

Perylene Green (460)
This is very, very dark, staining green that is black in mass-tone. It is made of Paliogen Black (PBk31) - when diluted you can get a decent transparent dark green.

Sepia (609)
This is another faux colour as real Sepia is derived from the ink of members of the genus Sepia L. (cuttlefish), but this is a mixture of Carbon Black (PBk6) and Synthetic Iron Oxide (PR101). I think it might be useful for shadows in the evening sun as it has a lovely warmth to it.

You can see more about these colours in my Part I video for this challenge:

Watercolour Papers For Stamping 1: Why, What and How

This post is really just a pre-amble to some product comparisons I've done this weekend - they will be posted over the next few weeks in 4 parts.

A lot of cardmakers and papercrafters use watercolour paper to make card-fronts or to create special effects. Two of my favourite cardmakers are Kristina Werner and Jennifer McGuire, both of whom do beautiful watercolour effects - either with 'proper' watercolour paint or using inks or liquid-watercolours and so on. I've noticed that a lot of cardmakers on YouTube, for example, use what I would called 'craft watercolour paper' (craft, not kraft!) - this is often very expensive for what it is and is nothing more than student-quality 100% woodpulp watercolour paper - usually hot-press or a very low-texture cold-press. Now, I'm not going to waste my professional-quality £30-per-block watercolour paper for cards or similar, so I always  have a stash of student-grade paper that I buy when it's on offer and I use it for making colour-charts (screw the whole "make them on the paper you use" thing - I have a master set on cheap paper and then before painting something 'proper', I paint swatches on the edges of the paper, outside of the picture area) - I use the same paper for cards, for example, if I need a watercolour panel. These kinds of techniques range from the beautiful hand-lettering that Kristina is famous for to no-line-colouring (ditto) and the watercolour painting of stamped images.

The lovely, generous and friendly people at St Cuthbert's Mill located in the county of Somerset (where my mother's father's family were from), here in the United Kingdom just a few months ago sent me not only a few dozen Imperial sheets (30 × 22" or 76.2 × 55.9cm) of beautiful Bockingford cold-press (my main go-to paper), but also a block of Saunders Waterford cold-press High-White (an ultra-white) to try out and maybe 50 or so small swatches of all the different papers, textures and weights so that I could try them all out and share the results with you!

Amidst the samples was a non-watercolour-paper, to my surprise! Somerset Printmaking Paper - this is a 100% cotton, archival-quality printmaking paper - they sent me a piece of 300gsm Textured White, which feels a bit like a cold-press watercolour paper and reminds me a lot of Saunders Waterford in terms of how the surface feels - that is also a 100% cotton paper. At first I was like "but I don't do printmaking - I don't need this!" but then earlier this week, I had a kind of epiphany - what is rubber-stamping? PRINTMAKING!

So, whilst Somerset Printmaking Paper is NOT cheap if you buy it by the 25-sheet-pack (it's about the same price as Bockingford when it's on a per-sheet basis at Imperial size - which is actually pretty economical), I wanted to see how it performed for stamping and maybe watercolouring of stamped images...but, being a scientist, I can't just look at a single paper and review it - oh no - I had to do a proper comparison! 

The products I decided to compare are as follows - I opted to use hot-press watercolour paper since it stamps better as a rule, owing to the flat surface:

Somerset Printmaking Paper (SCM) - 300gsm, Textured, White.
[100% cotton; internally sized; long grain; 88% TAPPI]
Bockingford Watercolour Paper (SCM) - 300gsm, Hot Press, White.
[100% bleached chemical pulp; internally sized; short grain; 89% TAPPI]
Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper (SCM) - 190gsm; Hot Press, White.
[100% cotton; internally sized + gelatine surface sized; long grain; 76% TAPPI]
Saunders Waterford Watercolour Paper (SCM) - 190gm; Hot Press; High White.
[100% cotton; internally sized + gelatine surface sized; long grain; 89% TAPPI]
Bristol Board (D&R) - 250gsm; Plate Finish; White.
[unknown composition]
Premium Smooth Card (HC) - 300gsm; Smooth Finish; White.
[unknown composition]

SCM = St Cuthbert's Mill; D&R = Daler & Rowney; HC = Hobbycraft
TAPPI = Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry [Brightness Scale]

DECLARATION St Cuthbert's Mill provided me with samples of their papers for review - all other items used in this review I bought myself. Note when items are provided to me for review, I am not obligated to give a good review and my agreement with companies is that I must be able to give a 100% honest review.

Other Materials Used:

Stamps
Craft Asylum "Home Sweet Home" photopolymer stamp set
Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection "Papillon CMS 106" red rubber stamp set.
Brushes and Tools
Winsor & Newton kolinsky sable artist's brush - Size 0 Round.
Papermania acrylic stamp block - 4.00 × 5.25".
Alcohol Markers
Promarker - Cool Grey 2 (CG2) 
Promarker - Cool Grey 3 (CG3)
Promarker - Cool Grey 4 (CG4)
Promarker - Shale (R215)
Promarker - Slate (V715)
Promarker - Sunflower (Y156)
Dye Ink
Tsukineko Memento dye ink - "Rich Cocoa ".
Ranger Archival dye ink - "Jet Black ".
Pigment Ink
Tsukineko VersaFine fine-grade pigment ink - "Onyx Black ".
Watermark Ink*
Tsukineko VersaMark watermarking ink.
(* NB: only used to pre-prime photopolymer stamps - glycerol can be used instead)
Specialist Inks
Ranger Distress Ink - "Iced Spruce ".
Ranger Distress Ink - "Hickory Smoke ".
Ranger Distress Ink - "Barn Door ".
Ranger Distress Ink - "Gathered Twigs ".
Ranger Distress Ink - "Fossilized Amber ".

[...to be continued...]

The Svalbard Series

So, I've been painting a lot of botanicals lately for a meadow project I'm working on and they all involve many layers of glazing. Whilst they are drying, I've taken to doing sketches based on the aurora borealis - this has kind of now become a thing and it's had a lot of attention on Twitter so I'm now hashtagging them as the #svalbardseries - they are silhouettes based on actual Google Street View images from Svalbard, but with imaginary backgrounds. Here are some examples, thus far - two based around the town Longyearbyen and one more rural based near to a mining town. Important to note that St Cuthbert's Mill kindly gave me a block of Saunder's Waterford paper to review, gratis, and I've been suing it for these paintings and others to really test it out. It is in 140lb cold-press (CP/NOT) in their 'high-white' colour, which is a very pure, bright white.

Miner's Daughter, Ana, Meets Jörð's Daughter, Aurora

Watercolour on paper. Copyright (C) 2016, The Spindoctor. CC BY-SA-4.0.

Saunders Waterford 140lb "high white" cold-press paper.

Artist-grade paints by Winsor & Newton in Indigo, Prussian Blue, Aureolin, Phthalo Green YS and BS, Ultramarine Purple and Ivory Black.

This was originally going to be 'Gaia's daughter', but I figure Jörð is more appropriate. The miner is stood to the left of their house, his daughter is held in his arms.

Winter Night At Longyearbyen

Watercolour and gouache on paper. Copyright (C) 2016, The Spindoctor. CC BY-SA-4.0.

Saunders Waterford 140lb "high white" cold-press paper.

Artist-grade paints by Winsor & Newton in French Ultramarine, Aurora Yellow (discontinued, 1997), Dioxazine Violet, Phthalo Green YS and Ivory Black. Spattered with Designer's Gouache (Winsor & Newton) in Zinc White.

Reflecting the aurora in the snow on the ground worked out really nicely in the end. I did the spattering effect with one of those spattering brushes that looks like a bottle-brush and you turn the handle - makes for a lovely fine spray!

Winter Morning At Longyearbyen

Watercolour on paper. Copyright (C) 2016, The Spindoctor. CC BY-SA-4.0.

Saunders Waterford 140lb "high white" cold-press paper.

Artist-grade paints by Winsor & Newton in Hansa Yellow, Emerald (discontinued, 2002), Prussian Blue, Indigo, Ultramarine Violet and Ivory Black.

Don't be confused by the name at the bottom - that was me noting down what to paint next (i.e. the painting above this one!) but I was going to paint Norway - this was prior to deciding to stick to Svalbard.

Three Jar Inspiration

UPDATE 15th June 2016: I've made some worksheets for this technique and put them on my Downloads page to help start people off.

We all struggle with a lack of inspiration for painting regularly - personally I started using painting a small botanical each evening and posting them on Twitter under #bedtimebotanical a good motivation (please feel free to join me in that!), but there's another method I also use - I call it "three jar inspiration". If you use it, please tweet it or tag it on YouTube (etc) with #3jarspaint so we can share with one another our outcomes. I came up with this for myself as a means to force myself to use a wider range of mediums and to stretch my range of what I paint/draw - it has worked really well for that!

You need:
* Three jars of any kind.
* Paper (typing paper or scraps, 3 colours is ideal).

Label the jars, if you like - the should be labelled "What" "Style" and "How" - the "How" jar is actually optional. If you only paint in one medium e.g. watercolour and you don't want to use any other media, you can stick to just two jars.

In the "What" jar, put pieces of paper on which you have written a whole load of subjects for painting - these can be really specific like "The Sea", "A Banana", "Two Sheep", "A Beetle", or can be more figurative like "Playtime", "Laughter", "Deep Love", "Gaia's Might". You can use anything you like! If you like to use images for reference, you could swap this jar for a shoebox full of postcards or printed out images, for example. If you don't use reference photos - or perhaps want to start to get away from them - you can stick to using words on slips of paper and then only look up a reference photo when you really need it.

In the "Style" jar, put pieces of paper on which you have written a wide variety of styles, such as "Loose", "Abstract", "Impressionist", "Tudor", "Cubist", "Decalcomania" - they don't have to be specifically painting styles - you could use -  "Steampunk", "Vibrant", "Twisted", "Nightmare", "Stormy", "Dreamlike", "Utopia" - use your imagination! Or for a REAL challenge, put in some names of painters you admire! I've put in names of YouTubers I love as it helps me to try out their distinctive styles!

In the optional "How" jar, put pieces of paper on which you have written the different media you have to hand - put each one in a few times, obviously. "Charcoal", "Papercraft", "Cardmaking", "Mixed Media", "Art Journal", "Oil Pastel", "Alcohol Ink", "Stamping", "Pyrography", "Oil", "Gouache", "Alkyd", "Crayon", "Chalk", "Chalk Pastel", "Acrylic"...

How it works!
All you do is firstly decide when you want to paint/draw etc - for me, it's 2200h, so whatever time it is, find another time maybe 12-24h before which will be the time you use the jars. For me, that's 0600h. I get up and first thing, I grab a piece of paper from each jar - that tells me what I am producing at 2200h so I have all day to think up what or how I'm going to do this - you could be doing "Wasp, Steampunk, Papercraft" one day and "Seascape, Loose, Watercolour" the next - or if you use names of artists you could end up trying to mimic Leonid Afremov's oil painting style using decoupage to create a banana - in this way it REALLY stretches you as an artist!

Even if you only use two jars (or one jar and one shoebox), you are still challenged with doing watercolours (or whatever) of "sunset over Mount St Helens in Picasso style" or "tip of a ball-point pen in an art deco style" - that's a great challenge! Happy painting!

Colour Translation: Beta Fish

Something I've loved for about 6 months now are the various watercolour tutorials by Lindsay The Frugal Crafter, which are often in the same impressionist and loose style I enjoy when painting watercolour. When I've tried to work from them though, I've found getting a good colour match for e.g. a "Rose" in a paint line she's using in the USA is pretty hard here in Europe where a lot of the popular US brands are pretty obscure and so do I use "Permanent Rose" or "Opera Rose" or "Quinacridone Rose"? Different brands have different pigment formulations of course. So, I set about researching the Turner Watercolours line of paints that Lindsay works from - not to be confused with the other Turner paints out there are which inferior brands - this line is artist-quality and appear very good indeed though I've yet to try them.

So, what I've begun doing is posting on here and on Lindsay's Youtube feed every now and again to translate what those paints would be in other brands, to help other painters out there. I've provided links to buy the Turner ones from Amazon UK if anyone wants to try them out - I promise I'll road-test them in the net few months, but I have a long list of things to get through already!

First video I'm doing it with is this Beta Fish video from Friday 22nd April 2016:

Colours used here are as follows and how they translate into different brands that use alternative names - I didn't get the green used in the seaweed as that was when the feed dropped out.

Turner: Quinacridone Magenta (PR211 Quinacridone Red) - equivalents will be either the same name or "Magenta", "Permanent Rose" or "Permanent Magenta" in Winsor & Newton or Daler & Rowney paints - "opera rose" has the same pigment plus a fugitive dye, so will fade, but is a much brighter shade so may not give the same results but should give a similar result. "Rose Red" and "Rose Madder (Hue)" may also have PR211. Daler & Rowney paints

Turner: Turquoise Blue (PB28 Cobalt Blue) - this is used in "Cobalt Blue" in most brands but be sure to find a "Cobalt Turquoise" or "Cobalt Blue Light" than has a lower pigment concentration to give a lighter colour.

Turner: Yellow Ochre (PY43 Natural Yellow Iron Oxide) - this is the same name in most brands. Some will use PY42 (Yellow Iron Oxide) instead/as well - which is just a different synthetic version - very similar, however.

I'm going to try and do this for all of Lyndsay's watercolour tutorials as I found it a pain trying to figure out what some of the colours were called in the brands we have here in the UK.

Supplies I Need To Use

I managed to start using my poor abandoned gouache this past week, so I've been thinking about what other supplies I have that I just plain need to use! The fact is - I cannot refuse a bargain - so I have plenty of things I got because they were a good deal but I've not really used much. Last night, I saw that Lindsay The Frugal Crafter had posted a much-requested video (seriously, every tutorial she does, someone asks for this!) tutorial using chalk pastels - incidentally, I cannot get used to Americans pronouncing "pastels" - in the UK, we say "pæstl", but in the USA they say "pæ'stɛl" (IPA). I replied to Lindsay's video to say "Y'know I really need to get some chalk pastels - and start using my oil ones..." - then when I started writing this post, I remembered, I have some Derwent Pastel Pencils, that I got for 50p each in my local art shop's "Clearance" section to make space for new stock - they normally sell for £1.80 each, so that was pretty good - I've not used them yet! I also have some Derwent Tinted Pastel Pencils I bought in a few specific colours to add to my stash thereof and, since buying those, I've not used them. So, that means I can probably try Lindsay's tutorial, albeit in random colours! I also have a set of oil pastels - Derwent Academy Oil Pastels - which are student-grade but they feel nice to use, I just wish I knew more techniques and found them a bit easier to use in terms of making what I'm looking for.

I've neglected my acrylics a LOT since I started painting watercolour every day as a challenge to myself. I have a mixture of different types, all from Daler and Rowney - CRYLA Artists' Acrylics, System 3 Acrylics and Graduate Student Acrylics - I don't have any of their budget line - the Simply Acrylic Paint. I've got some Simply Golden Taklon Brushes, which I think are fantastic value - they're really good quality for the price and are great for acrylics - you can kind of get away with using them for thick gouache application but not really anything else. I did get a set of Simply Oil Paints, because I wanted to learn some basic techniques and ways to use the paints without worrying too much about pigment load or quality etc - just something to practice and play with. Back to acrylics, Daler and Rowney oddly sell 4 grades - I'm used to "Artist, Student, Basic" combinations, like their watercolours - Artist's Water Colours, Aquafine Student Watercolours [sold as Georgian Watercolours in the USA], Simply Watercolours - but in their acrylic range, both the Graduate and the System 3 ranges are marketed as being student paints - the latter are better quality, however. I believe System 3 is for "amateur artists and experienced students" or some similar wording, but price-wise, Graduate just aren't as good value in terms of pigment load.

Finally, my dear neglected embossing powders - I very, very highly rate the range of Wendy Vecchi embossing powders by Ranger - the colours are fantastic and the quality is really high (I've reviewed all of them on Amazon). Wendy herself has posted some great mixes she's produced from her embossing powders - something that I've done a fair bit of myself and shared with her a technique for faux enamelling that uses her powders - something I'll be making a video tutorial on soon.

So, that's a whole load of stuff I want to make more use of! This is before I even get as far as inks...!

From The Vaults: More Winsor and Newton discontinued colours!

So, I went back to my local art shop today and asked if I could have the rest of those discontinued Winsor and Newton Professional Water Colours that I saw yesterday and, could I have them for £1.00 each, per the price they gave me yesterday. The lady on the till had to call the lady I dealt with yesterday, who is evidently more superior, and it was agreed I could have the 5 tubes of Winsor and Newton Professional Water Colour AND 3 tubes of Daler and Rowney Designers' Gouache for £1 each - that gave me a pretty good bargain if you look at current prices - I've marked all discontinued products with an asterisk (*). NB: one of them is another tube of 017 Aurora Yellow that I bought yesterday as I liked the colour and decided I wanted some more.

Daler and Rowney Designers' Gouache
(I've linked the ones I can find on Amazon.co.uk, but I know all 3 are still in circulation based on Daler and Rowney's colour charts)
351 Mint , Series B = £6.31 ["normally permanent"]
533 Mars Red , Series B = £6.31 ["moderately permanent"]
589 Vermilion Red, Series D = £8.31 ["moderately permanent"]

Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolours
(As some of these are in packaging that dates back to 1974, they could well be 42 years old...! As such, some information is missing from the packaging but I have contacted the company and ask them for their help to fill in the blanks)
017 Aurora Yellow*, Series 4 = £8.80 ["A"]
037 Prussian Green*, Series 1 = £5.90 [?]
006 Bright Red*, Series 1 = £5.90 [?]
054 Winsor Emerald, Series 1 = £5.90 [?]
331 Ivory Black, Series 1 = £5.90 ["AA"]

Total value: £53.33 [US$75.33, A$99.76, €66.07, C$97.86]
I paid: £8.00 [US$11.30, A$14.96, €9.91, C$14.68]
SAVING: £45.33 [US$64.03, A$84.79, €56.16, C$83.18]

Not bad huh? Even Lindsay The Frugal Crafter would be pushing it to get such a good bargain and she's amazing at bargains - I wish we had couponing in the UK in the same sense as in the USA - and she's a fantastic watercolourist who is incredibly generous with her time and is one of my favourite YouTube artists and crafters.

So, in terms of giving them a try! I've not touched the gouache yet, nor 017 Aurora Yellow as I did that yesterday so I've just kept the tube as stock. The other colours were interesting when I opened them!

037 Prussian Green, for wont of a better word, was kind of constipated! I could not squeeze anything out but the tube felt soft, not like it had hardened in the tube. I pushed a cocktail stick down the neck and after a lot of squeezing managed to get about 1/3 of the tube into my palette. A quick mist with water and I'm going to let it dry down overnight before I try and test it.

006 Bright Red, this one was actually fine - a little stiffer than is usual but the binder had not separated at all, even after what could have been 42 years sitting around in a tube!

054 Winsor Emerald was much like 017 Aurora Yellow was yesterday - texture was totally fine but there was some binder separation - a stir with a cocktail stick soon sorted that out.

331 Ivory Black felt fine but when I opened the tube there was a lot of gas! It didn't smell bad and there was no separation or setting, it just felt like an air-pocket in the tube to be honest. It had a perfectly good texture, if a little jelly-like and wobbly.

I've left all of them to set overnight before I test them for colour and mixing, as per.

To update the 017 Aurora Yellow I tested yesterday, I can confirm it has dried really well into the palette and the stuff I painted out yesterday has now dried and looks fantastic. I've added some extra pictures to the post from yesterday.

From The Vaults: Winsor and Newton Aurora Yellow

I do love a good deal and I also love discontinued items that have an intrinsic kind of value (not monetary) because of the fact that you're one of few people who has them. I love rare books, I love antique-yet-not-highly-valuable items and I love rare paints too!

I was in my local art shop earlier this week, picking up some Winsor and Newton Professional Water Colour in 637 Terre Verte, 554 Raw Umber, 447 Olive Green and 719 Winsor Green (Blue Shade), and I spotted a colour I'd not seen before - 017 Aurora Yellow. I check Winsor and Newton's website and, sure enough, they don't make it. I emailed them and was pretty shocked to find they stopped manufacturing it back in 1997 because it didn't sell well! Not often you can find 19 year old stock being sold at the same price as new stock - it has an RRP of £8.80 but the shop have 15% off this range so it's £7.48 per tube. I went in today to get some 321 Indanthrene Blue and 190 Cobalt Turquoise and decided to pick up a tube - upon getting to the counter I asked if it was going to be ok, given it was 20 years old. After a bit of bluster, it became a "mistake" that it was on those shelves (kicking myself for not spotting this sooner - I've several tubes in the same packaging that are clearly 15+ years old from the same shop!) and lo and behold it became a mere £1.00 at which point I grabbed the remaining tubes!

I could find out nothing about 017 Aurora Yellow online - the only thing I know for sure is that it is a cadmium-containing pigment as there is a warning label on the tube. Searching The Color of Art Pigment Database, I found it might contain PY35 Cadmium Yellow (Cadmium zinc sulfide) and PY37 Cadmium Yellow (Cadmium sulfide), which, once I got it out of the tube, made perfect sense. Winsor and Newton are kindly checking their database to find out what is in it for me.

The packaging - this is 3 designs ago, so say the folk at Winsor and Newton. It could have been manufactured any time from 1974 to 1995.

The cadmium hazard warning is the text in the box on the left.

So, here it is, squirted into my new Jakar 12 well palette (I needed some more space but something small enough to stand on top of my studio palette until I can justify buying a second one of the latter). You can see the pigment has separated from the binder at some point in the last 20 years.

Here is a close-up of the above using the ×10 macro on my Olloclip 4-in-1 Lens, where you can see the pigment hasn't discoloured, and it hasn't separated too much - nothing a cocktail stick shouldn't fix, right?

Yup, I was right. Looks fine doesn't it? I didn't add any glycerol but if it doesn't dry down well over the coming days, I'll add water and glycerol then try again. So, how does it look?

It's quite a cool yellow but has the opacity and intensity of a cadmium yellow - maybe a cadmium lemon overall? The yellows to the left of it are (top down) Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolour in 016 Aureolin, 347 Lemon Yellow (Nickel Titanate), 108 Cadmium Yellow, 267 New Gamboge, and 319 Indian Yellow. 

Obviously, this is viewed wet but I'll add some photos one it's dry. On the whole, a good fine to get a good, opaque cool yellow for £1 at professional grade!

You can hear a bit more over on my YouTube channel:

UPDATED 10th April 2016

The paint in the palette and on the paper are now both dry so I thought I would add them for comparison purposes:

The paint in the palette has dried perfectly well - it has a few minor "gaps" - they're not cracks per se, and I'm sure it will wet fine for use - I'm going to test this along with my other haul of discontinued watercolours later in the week. 

And here it is painted out using a Number 4 Sable Round onto a scrap of Cotman Hot Press Watercolour Paper. You can get a good idea of the colour and how it looks as a wash. It's like a cooler Cadmium Yellow, in a way.