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.

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]

Product Review: Millford Watercolour Paper - Part II

I posted Part I on of this review with some background information and product links a week or so ago. The full review is now online:

If you like the look of Millford too and want to try it out:

Millford only comes in 300gsm (140lb) cold-press paper in the form of Imperial, Half Imperial and Quarter Imperial sheets [US readers can buy it here], which is very economical even though it's quite a large outlay as one has to buy 4 or 10 sheets as a minimum from most suppliers, but do shop around. If you find a vendor that sells it by the sheets, please let me know in the comments and I'll add it to the post! You can buy Bockingford and Saunders Waterford papers via my Watercolour Supplies page.

Product Review: Millford Watercolour Paper - Part I

EDITED 19/07/16 - I have just found somewhere you can buy original Whatman watercolour papers - albeit antique sheets. I've not bought anything from them and know nothing about them but I just found it online - please post a comment if you know if they're a reliable person to buy from or not. Thanks.

As astute viewers or readers will note, I have reviewed recently the tinted Bockingford range (Review. Video.) from St Cuthbert's Mill. In amongst the same package of sample papers from St Cuthbert's Mill was a paper I'd never even heard of before - Millford Watercolour Paper. The notes in the package said it was designed to replace the discontinued Whatman Watercolour Paper, which ceased production in the 1980s. I was curious about this because we use Whatman filter paper, chromatography paper etc day in day out in my research laboratory. I've since done some reading, so here's a little history lesson for you!

The Whatman Paper History
Waaaaaay back, about 1750, Mr Whatman (or probably one of his staff) discovered a new way to make paper using a super-fine mesh that created a smooth paper without impressions from the mesh. This was the first of the modern printmaking papers - remember that back then, watercolour paper didn't really exist yet. Mr Whatman noticed that since the paper was lovely and smooth, he could impress things into the wet paper - like sheets of felt or hot metal rollers - to create pressed paper or rolled paper. These lead to the cold press and hot press papers we all know and love, though they were "printmaking paper" or "drawing paper" at that time. Sizing then started to be added and what Mr Whatman is usually credited with is the hard size - this being at the time made of gelatin cross-linked with aluminium potassium sulfate (potash alum aka alum) - alum connects gelatin chains together, making a gel that, when it dries out, is nice and hard and, importantly, holds back water for quite a long time. This was obviously popular with the watercolour painters of the day! Nowadays, there's a bit of an issue with potash alum with regard to archival properties - so synthetic sizes often get used, or are made with strong buffers to get the pH stable.

So what was modern Whatman paper?
As I understand it, it was a heavily sized, cotton-and-linen rag paper with a strong gelatin sizing both internally and surface sized too, which makes the paint float on the paper for a really long time. This means that:

• Washes sit on the paper for a really long time before drying, so you can play with them for a long while.
• Even staining-colours can be lifted because the sizing is so strong.
• Because the paint sits on the surface and doesn't soak in, it retains full colour and has wonderful luminosity and glow.

How does Millford paper compare?

Millford only comes in 300gsm (140lb) cold-press paper in the form of Imperial, Half Imperial and Quarter Imperial sheets [US readers can buy it here], which is quite limiting. So I am told, St Cuthbert's Mill have actually obtained Whatman's recipe, so what they make is pretty similar, and it has really good reviews. 

I decided to compare it with all of my other papers in stock at the moment and with both granulating mineral-based paints and with light-stain and heavy-stain dye-based paints. This is what I'm going to test:

• How long washes sit on the paper and how different they are when they dry.
• How well the 3 different colour types lift, both immediately and after drying totally.
• How the paper responds to masking fluid (heavy sizing should making this easy to remove and use).

I'll be posting a video and blog post of my findings tomorrow!

Bockingford Tinted Watercolour Papers - A Review

So some time ago now, the lovely people at St Cuthbert's Mill (based pretty nearby - they're upcountry in Somerset) sent me some papers to try out - samples of every weight and texture combination of Bockingford and Saunders Waterford. The former is chemical pulp and my preferred day-to-day paper - 535gsm/250lb, cold-press. I love the Rough texture even more, but it doesn't come heavier than 425gsm/200lb, and I prefer really heavy paper. The latter is a 100% cotton, heavily sized paper that I like for producing works as gifts or to sell - best of all, it comes at 638gsm/300lb in a Rough texture, which is brilliant! Sadly, it's very expensive for day-to-day use, otherwise I would be using it all the time. They also sent me some of their Millford watercolour paper (which is a facsimile remake of the old Whatman watercolour paper) and their Somerset printmaking paper - more on those later.

As well as the usual White and High White (bright white) finishes, Bockingford now comes in 5 tinted varieties - Oatmeal, Eggshell, Blue, Grey and Cream - these only come as 300gsm/140lb in cold-press, but that's ok. In the samples that St Cuthbert's Mill sent to me, they only sent small maybe 4" × 4" square pieces, so I didn't really know what to do with them and they've been languishing for months! I've never used tinted watercolour paper before but I know people use it to show different moods or times of day and I've been itching to try it but couldn't come up with a way to do it.

Lap dissolve and cut to this week! I discovered the wonderful Peter Sheeler's YouTube channel - he does beautiful urban sketches of wonderful locations all over the world and then paints beautiful layers of transparent glazes over them to create fabulous images. This week I saw a video he did of a painting of a street in Porto, Portugal. I just LOVED this video as the image reminds me a lot of the style of an original watercolour I was given 10 years ago by some friends, of a ruined church in Bulgaria, painted in the late 1990s - I can't read the artist's name, unfortunately, but I'll post the picture at some stage in the future as I love it so much. Anyway, one night I couldn't sleep so I did a version of Peter's sketch, with some differences - I removed the road sign and made a lamp-post for example - and I realised it was the perfect sketch to use to test the Bockingford tinted papers!

I then set about re-drawing it six times which was boring beyond belief - I stopped aiming for replicas and just went with six fairly similar pictures. I then mixed up some nice weak washes and painted all six pictures at once then left them to dry before judging how the tints impacted the mood.

Overall, I liked them a lot - the Grey and Blue were the ones I ended up enjoying the most for the watercolour and the Cream for the line-drawing stage of things. As with all Bockingford papers, masking tape did some damage - keep that in mind. I've embedded my video review, and, below that, there are the different ways you can buy these papers:

Bockingford Trial Pack (2 Quarter Imperial sheets of each of 5 tints) – UK £10.31 (http://amzn.to/29Jz3uc) or USA $14.23 (http://amzn.to/2agIRwM)

Curtisward Bockingford Rainbow Pack (140lb, Cold Press, 11” x 15”, 2 sheets of each tint) – UK £14.99 (http://amzn.to/29INwvR)

Curtisward Bockingford Rainbow Pack (140lb, Cold Press, 7.5” x 11”, 2 sheets of each tint) – UK £7.99 (http://amzn.to/29JzBjN)

GREY (140lb, Cold Press)

11” by 15” (Quarter Imperial) – 20 sheets – UK: £13.11 (http://amzn.to/29AW9qO) OR 200 sheets – UK: £124.12 (http://amzn.to/29CmKAh)

15” by 22” (Half Imperial) – 20 sheets – UK: £23.70 (http://amzn.to/29AWfyR) OR 100 sheets – UK: £124.12 (http://amzn.to/29AWlGy)

22” by 30” (Imperial) – Single Sheet USA: $18.94 (http://amzn.to/2agKgTS)

CREAM (140lb, Cold Press)

11” by 15” (Quarter Imperial) – 20 sheets – UK: £13.11 (http://amzn.to/29Cng13) OR 80 sheets – UK: £49.65 (http://amzn.to/29Z0VMH)

15” by 22” (Half Imperial) – 20 sheets – UK: £23.70 (http://amzn.to/29JAdpr) OR 100 sheets – UK: £124.12 (http://amzn.to/29JAp83)

22” by 30” (Imperial) – Single Sheet USA: $18.94 (http://amzn.to/2agJMgD)

OATMEAL (140lb, Cold Press)

11” by 15” (Quarter Imperial) – 20 sheets – UK: £13.11 (http://amzn.to/29JAvgb) OR 200 sheets – UK: £124.12 (http://amzn.to/29NwcUJ)

15” by 22” (Half Imperial) – 20 sheets – UK: £23.70 (http://amzn.to/29JAdpr)

BLUE (140lb, Cold Press)

11” by 15” (Quarter Imperial) – 40 sheets – UK: £21.25 (http://amzn.to/29AXNZx)

15” by 22” (Half Imperial) – 10 sheets – UK: £15.55 (http://amzn.to/29IOO9V)

22” by 30” (Imperial) – Single Sheet USA: $18.94 (http://amzn.to/29CD3gy)

EGGSHELL

11” by 15” (Quarter Imperial) – 80 sheets – UK: £49.65 (http://amzn.to/29CnmWy)

15” by 22” (Half Imperial) - 20 sheets - UK: £23.70 (http://amzn.to/29JC4KM)

22” by 30” (Imperial) – 10 sheets – UK: £23.70 (http://amzn.to/29CnAgg)

How To Stretch Watercolour Paper

Oh bane of my life. Oh job I hate more than anything else with regard to painting! Yes, stretching watercolour paper. I actually only hate it because it takes time and means I need to plan ahead and it sometimes means I can't be spontaneous, it's actually pretty easy to do! Someone asked me yesterday on Twitter about this so I put together this video showing how I personally do it. I've also curated some timings for different papers so that you can get your soaking times right. NB: if when it has dried, your board has bowed or buckled (yes, paper is stronger than boards, weird huh?!), you will need to cut the paper free and stretch it again on a stiffer board, because it hasn't actually stretched properly. You'll need to be careful with it - once it's been soaked once, a second soak can ruin the sizing, so you may be better off testing your board with cheap paper first and making sure it's strong enough - thicker papers are more likely to cause issues with this.

Personally, I do stretch 425gsm (200lb), 535gsm (250lb) and 638gsm (300lb) papers - they do benefit from it if you like to paint a lot of washes or use mediums.

Caution re: masking fluids: sometimes after stretching, even if they survive washes and painting, the sizing can be weakened enough that masking fluids can rip the paper - as such, if you use masking fluid on stretched paper, just be especially careful when removing it and don't leave it on for more than an hour or so.

Chemical pulp papers (e.g. Bockingford)

300gsm or higher (140lb or higher) - 8 minutes - some of the really heavyweight papers need 10 minutes but few need more.
190 to 300gsm (90 to 140lb) - 3-4 minutes.
150gsm or lower (72lb or below) - 2-3 minutes - maybe even less.

100% cotton papers (e.g. Langton Prestige, Saunders Waterford, Millford)

Per the above but depending on humidity and how the paper has been stored, you may find it needs a little less time - experiment.

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.