The Spin Doctor likes spinning, crochet, knitting and weaving and drawing (charcoal, pen and ink), colouring (pen and ink, ProMarker, tinted charcoal), painting (acrylic, watercolour, gouache and very, very rarely oil), papercraft (dyes, inks, alcohol inks, die-cutting) and mixed-media. Through this website he shares projects, tips, product reviews and gives help where he can to those who need it.
I've been trying to get myself organised for en plein air painting before the summer is over and I bought myself first of all a small Cotman sketchers set with 12 half-pans, and I liked it a lot but, y'know, I like to paint with 24 colours, minimum, so I started looking at buying another one, getting some empty half pans and pouring my own professional paints blah blah...then it hit me - I'm never going to paint a finished painting outdoors - only ever studies and sketches - so who needs professional paints, right? I found a Cotman 45-half-pan studio set, which was at a steal of a price - reduced from £65.00 to £27.79 on Amazon UK - too good to miss out on, right? That's like £0.60 per half pan, they're normally £2.50 each in the shops! So, I got it, but, unlike the sketchers set, that is clearly designed for en plein air work, with every pan fitting tightly, this is a studio set in which the pans rattle and I just couldn't see it working in the field without being damaged. First thing I did was repair the loose paint and remove all the duplicates and colours I hate. I then bought two colours from Winsor and Newton professional range that I can't live without in the field - Green Gold and Opera Rose - and I added a medium to it - compressed oxgall from Schmincke, already in half-pan form. I added a colourchart, backed with funfoam so that it cushioned the paints. I also intended to add some sticks cut from facial sponges to pad between the pans and to be useful in the field too. My plans to accessorise this are a mini-mister containing 1% solution of Daler & Rowney acrylic flow enhancer, as it is a good way to wet the paints really fast in the field. There will also be some bottles for clean and dirty water, plus a brush. As the set doesn't come with a brush, I chose a 000 Renaissance Squirrel Mop from Pro-Arte, who are rapidly becoming my favourite brush company! It's a beautiful brush with genuine fur, and thus gives a needle-fine point or can be used to wet large areas - perfect in the field where I don't want to carry multiple brushes.
A little break before I upload the next instalment of my stamping paper product comparison - a mini-haul! I actually went to Hobbycraft in search of some velum or some 12 × 12" decorative paper that I could use to make some custom envelopes for forthcoming birthday cards and gifts for friends. I ended up discovering some great deals on brushes from Daler and Rowney! I don't normally buy 'good' acrylic brushes as they end up knackered, but they had some CRYLA (the professional brushes) for less than half price, and, due to a pricing error on the till, I saved a lot more! Love it when shops make mistakes in the customers' favour - were it a tiny art shop, I'd've gone back and told them, but I don't feel anything towards the big chains tbh. CRYLA brushes are a very stiff synthetic brush suited to heavy-body acrylics in particular, that are designed to look like a faux natural fibre - no idea why, that makes ZERO difference to performance and who honestly cares what colour the fibres are when they're covered in paint most of the time?! Weird... DALON brushes are a soft, thirsty synthetic brush designed as a mimic sable, with each fibre having a pointed tip, so that they are like hairs. This makes them look darker at the ends. I got the following - I've linked to Amazon UK for them as Hobbycraft don't sell them online - note Amazon currently have a sale on too - the prices are at the time of writing! CRYLA Size 4 Fan Blender - RRP normally £7.75 - Amazon presently £6.21. CRYLA 1/2" Flat Glaze - RRP normally £15.75 - Amazon presently £11.93. DALON Size 9 Round - RRP normally £9.75. DALON Size 12 Round - RRP normally £14.00
CRYLA Size 4 Fan Blender and 1/2" Flat Glaze. DALON Size 9 and Size 12 Rounds. I have not used CRYLA or DALON brushes before, so I'm excited to be trying these out and comparing them with other brushes I do commonly use. I also picked up a Cotman Sketcher's Set for £8.00 - it's normally £16.00 in there and £18.75 on Amazon - but the good news is they have it down to £7.79 at the moment too! I don't use student-grade watercolour as a rule, but I needed an en plein air solution for this summer and time is ticking. I was going to buy one of the W&N Artist Grade pan sets and fill it with my 24 main colours by buying empty half-pans and pouring my own using the tubes I already have...but the more I thought about it, what I really wanted to do was to keep the set on me at all times in my work-bag with a bottle of water and my sketchbook and I just couldn't see myself painting regularly en plein air if the paints were expensive. I also was realistic with myself - I don't have the time to sit around outside painting beautiful paintings! What I need to do is to sketch outside and then do bigger paintings with artist-grade paints back in my studio where I can do a better job of it. As such, my en plein air set didn't need to be fancy and a Cotman set would suffice! This set contains Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow (Hue), Alizarin Crimon (Hue), Cadmium Red, Phthalo Blue, Ultramarine, Viridian (Hue), Sap Green, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber and Chinese White. I'm going to add some more colours and remove some - like the bloody pointless white (I HATE white in sets!) - to get it down to 4 versions of each Yellow, Red and Blue - a warm, cool, neutral and earth. No need for the greens as I can just mix them myself. Looking forward to trying it out next week, though, with the colours I have at present!
I really love Jane Blundell's fabulous blog - even a boring colourchart looks exciting when Jane paints it and I'm going to pinch some of her ideas for my notebooks! I really love this post in particular on setting up an en plein air palette - something I plan to do now the summer is on the way!
- RRP normally £15.75 - Amazon presently £11.93.
- RRP normally £9.75.
- RRP normally £14.00
for £8.00 - it's normally £16.00 in there and £18.75 on Amazon - but the good news is they have it down to £7.79 at the moment too! I don't use student-grade watercolour as a rule, but I needed an en plein air solution for this summer and time is ticking. I was going to buy one of the W&N Artist Grade pan sets and fill it with my 24 main colours by buying empty half-pans and pouring my own using the tubes I already have...but the more I thought about it, what I really wanted to do was to keep the set on me at all times in my work-bag with a bottle of water and my sketchbook and I just couldn't see myself painting regularly en plein air if the paints were expensive. I also was realistic with myself - I don't have the time to sit around outside painting beautiful paintings! What I need to do is to sketch outside and then do bigger paintings with artist-grade paints back in my studio where I can do a better job of it. As such, my en plein air set didn't need to be fancy and a Cotman set would suffice!