Art Haul: Well, it has been like a whole week since the last one, right?!

This is part of my "must have full set syndrome" kicking in - I decided to get the rest - or near as damn it - of the Dina Wakley Media acrylic paints from Ranger. I already have bought two batches - my first was Night, Blackberry and Rosy (I had not realised the latter was a metallic) and then I expanded into some primaries and more secondaries with Lemon, Lime, Tangerine, Sky, Blushing and Umber. After the haul below, the only ones I don't now have are Gilt, Penny and Medieval - three metallics - I may or may not get them as I honestly seldom use metallic paints but who knows. I've stuck to the 1 fl. oz. (c. 60mL) bottles because they're very economical and have a fine-tip on them already, and above all, they're SMALL. I like to be able to keep all of my Dina Wakley Media Paints in the largest of my Dina Wakley Media storage bags - they're always to-hand and I can move them to other locations really easily. I did um-and-ah over the Black and White - I have a LOT of black gesso, white gesso, black acrylic, white acrylic - I don't really need them. That said, for monoprinting and a lot of other techniques, having paints of the same consistency is really important and it would save me a lot of hassle having to thin CRYLA down with GAC-100 every time I wanted a runnier paint. Dina's paints are quite stiff but they're not true Heavy Body paints like CRYLA that have the consistency of clay and huge pigment loads.

The Dylusions inks are the 4 of the current release (Aug 2017) that I don't already have - I've had Vanilla Custard and Rose Quartz for about a month, and I have Laidback Lilac and Mushy Peas already in the acrylic paints, but I wanted to get the others as I love these muted, more pastel-y shades when used dilute but as you can see from the swatches down below (which I paint with one of Dina's brushes), they're SO striking when laid on thick! The Dylusions paper is designed to resist the dyes so they blot off and leave a lovely even, vivid and bright effect. If you use watercolour paper (which is what I swatch onto) such as the stuff in Dina's Media Journal, you get AMAZING intense effects! 

All of the items in this haul are from Art From The Heart (Dyan Reaveley's business in Harrogate, North Yorkshire) - superprompt service and always a pleasure to deal with. Plus what's not to love when you get a package like this one?

Ranger Dina Wakley Media Acrylic Paints in:
   Cheddar [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Elephant [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Evergreen [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Fuchsia [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Lapis [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Magenta [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Ruby [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Turquoise [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   White [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Black [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Ocean [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Ancient [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Sterling [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

For those of you in the USA, you can get 6 tube sets of the 2016 colour release or the metallic paints for just $36, which is a pretty good deal - but sadly doesn't ship to the UK - in the 2016 set, you get Blushing, Evergreen, Cheddar, Fuchsia, Elephant and Ocean, and in the 2017 set you get Rosy, Medieval, Ancient, Gilt, Penny and Sterling. These may be a good way to stash-build economically? It's about a 30% discount for each set.

Ranger Dylusions Ink Sprays in:
   Mushy Peas [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Laidback Lilac [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Periwinkle Blue [BUY NOW: USA, UK]
   Peony Blush [BUY NOW: USA, UK]

Again, for those of you in the USA, you can get the corresponding 6 Dylusions acrylic paints for $30 right now, which is about 25% off - well worth it, they're great colours! 

Doctor's Orders: Yet Another Bloody Art Haul

Oh heck, I've had a LOT lately haven't I?! This is only a small haul and it comes from Amazon UK and from Art From The Heart, which is Mrs Reaveley's shop in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. First time I've used them so this is also a mini-review of Art From The Heart too, I guess.

The Amazon horde isn't very exciting - it's just a jar of Ranger embossing powder (which I didn't bother photographing) in Wendy Vecchi's Tree Branch shade of tan. I've not even photo'd it. Why? It's not new - I have a few jars in stock already, but as with any other discontinued colour that I'm fond of, I stockpile when I see it on sale, as you never know when it will be the final jar in the world! The corresponding Archival Ink in Tree Branch is also apparently long gone, but the re-inkers are relatively easy to get so you can make a pad with a customisable felt ink pad, of course. 

My other Amazon item was a set of Ranger Dylusions Journal Inserts (BUY NOW USA, UK) for the Large Creative Journal. This is a pack of 12 extra pages for the Large Creative Journal - 6 in the standard cream mixed-media paper that we all adore, and 3 of each black paper (the same as in the black square journal) and 3 of kraft process paper - they do use actual unbleached kraft process paper for this stock, and I love that. Same as in the Dina Wakley Media Journal. There are "kraft paper" stocks out there from various craft companies that are really manilla or otherwise that have been dyed to resemble genuine kraft process stock - so it's nice to see Ranger are behaving! I would like a Dylusions journal in kraft paper as I've enjoyed using it in Mrs Wakley's Media Journal - it can take many layers of paint and it copes well with weight too. Doesn't take dyes very well, as it's a bit less porous, but it's a fantastic stock to work on.

My Art From The Heart haul is much better for many reasons! For those who don't know, about 16 years ago, to my knowledge, and I'm sorry if I'm a bit wrong on the dates, Dyan Reaveley went into business running a craft supplies store in her hometown of Harrogate, and running art journalling and mixed media workshops. Over the years, she launched a line of Dylusions dyes made in the UK and sold only at her shop - Art From The Heart - time went by and Stampers Anonymous launched a range of stamps using her designs, and she started demonstrating products for Ranger, clearly catching someone's eye, as Ranger took all of her products in-house and took over the Dylusions brand, selling worldwide. It does mean if you look at her 2010-2011 blog posts from her ledger (an old finance ledger she'd gotten hold of and altered to make an art journal - the size of the pages and their binding as signatures ultimately inspired the Large Creative Journal), you'll see inks in her line called Aubergine and Peridot etc, but when Ranger took over, she rejigged which colours were in the line, and changed almost all of the names to make them 'of a type'. First time I've ever shopped direct with Art From The Heart but they are one of very few ways to buy Dina Wakley and Wendy Vecchi products, other than using Amazon UK or Amazon USA, and I have found that even Amazon doesn't get each new release of colours for quite some time - so I went direct.

First cab off the rank is the packaging - under the layers of bubblewrap I found this beautiful package - nice to see attention to detail and a bit of customer care - it's nicer opening something that feels like a gift isn't it?

Next up are the Dina Wakley Media Media Heavy Body Acrylic Paints. I've never tried these before, and I've really obtained them both out of curiosity myself and because folk had asked me about them. There is now quite a range of colours, including metallics and iridescent colours. They are now sold in both 1 US fl. oz. (just shy of 30mL) and 2 US fl. oz. (just shy of 60mL) sizes - the former are in squeeze-bottles and the latter in tubes. Even the tubes are a fair bit smaller than the typical 75mL paint tubes one get acrylic in for fine art, but price-wise they aren't too bad. Using the Art From The Heart prices, you'd be paying in the UK a very similar price to Dylusions acrylic paint on a price per mL basis: Distress Paint is a lot more costly, so keep that in mind! I went with the smaller pack size as I don't know if I like them yet, basically. I did swatch out the 3 colours that I got - Night (a dark blue that is almost black but not quite BUY NOW USA, UK), Blackberry (a bright violet BUY NOW USA, UK) and Rosy (looks pink in the photos on their website, but it's actually a very subtle and pretty rose-gold with an iridescence to it BUY NOW USA, UK). From seeing Dina's videos, I'd thought they looked much less viscous than CRYLA paints, but when I swatched them out, they held their shape completely for >2h and dried in a raised shape, which was really cool. As per any other craft product, you don't get the pigment information (I wish the craft industry would at least put it on their websites, for both safety, allergy and so as to open their market to artists a bit more. If you think about the Prima and Jane Davenport watercolours, they're virtually identical - I'm sure they both use the same base bought from the same company (which I think is in South Korea) and have custom pigment blends added to it to make their paints - but Jane gives pigment information on hers which makes them infinitely easier to mix and to use in replicating tutorials. Not all "warm blue" paints are remotely similar so you can't just pick anything and expect the same results - especially in watercolour - but as Prima don't mention their pigments (but they tell me they have considered doing so), they will always been the "worse" one of the two, in spite of being largely identical. You also don't get any lightfastness information and I find that pretty important to have. Even if pigmentation and lightfastness are only on a downloadable PDF on their websites, it's really good to have.

I got the Ranger Dylusions set of acrylic paint pens (BUY NOW USA, UK) - I already have the black and white set, but the coloured set that came out in January I've wanted for ages! The colours are Postbox Red (which I have in the acrylic paint already), Squeezed Orange, Lemon Zest, Cut Grass (which I also have the paint of), London Blue and Crushed Grape. I have got the orange, yellow, blue and purple in the spray inks too. I love the colours and hope they're going to release more or the range in this format as they're great for fine detail. If you've ever had any issues using them, watch this video from Dyan as it really helps!

I also got these two Dylusions acrylic paints - Laidback Lilac (BUY NOW USA, UK) and Mushy Peas (BUY NOW USA, UK). Why these colours? The soft furnishings in my front parlour are those colours (and a warm goldenrod type yellow too), and they're from the Summer 2017 release, which also includes Rose Quartz (a very soft pastel pink), Peony Blush (a kind of pastel cerise), Vanilla Custard (a pastel yellow-cream) and Periwinkle Blue (another pastel-y colour but darker - just has that kind of look to it - it reminds me of how blue chalk looks I guess!). They're a really nice release and open up the range to those who like softer "baby" colours. Mushy peas, are, for the benefit of my American visitors are peas soaked with bicarbonate and then boiled to shit - they end up this kind of colour (unless you buy the tinned ones which are almost florescent green!). I love the viscosity of these paints and that I can build up body as well as paint super-thin layers with a blending foam tool.

QoR Watercolours by Golden - 24-colour set

I've recently obtained the 24-colour set of 5-mL QoR watercolour tube paints by Golden. Golden sells a number of paints and mediums under the QoR branding and they sell a number of sets - to be honest, I'm not convinced by some of the sets - who wants a "high chroma set" that doesn't have a proper blue? At least sell warm and cool triads, for example. You can also buy the loose paints, but they're not cheap. This 24-colour set cost me about US$80.00, which is about £60.00 or so - that's not THAT bad at £2.50 per tube, I guess, but I'm aware buying them as open stock or buying them in a lot of European countries is VERY costly. The 6-tube sets on Amazon UK sell for an equivalent of over £4 (US$5.20) per tube, which is a LOT. I got this set from Amazon USA where the price was more economical - I've not seen the 24-set for sale in the UK but on the basis of the 6-sets, I would estimate a sale price in the UK of somewhere near to £100 (US$130) for the set. You can get them fairly economically from Jackson's Art Supplies though:



Golden formulated QoR with a different binder to all other watercolours on the market. The conventional binders in most watercolours are usually gum arabic (from Vachellia seyal Delile (P.J.Hunter)) or gum senegal (from Acacia senegal L. (Willd.)). Gum arabic and gum senegal are both mostly composed of arabinogalactan, a gum polymer made up long chains that alternate between the pentose sugar arabinose and the hexose sugar galactose - so a bit like starch or glycogen, but they're both made up of the hexose sugar glucose. QoR watercolours use the binder Aquazol®, which is entirely synthetic.

Aquazols® (plural) are a range of polymers owned by Polymer Chemistry Innovations Inc. (PIC Inc.), which license the use of Aquazol® in watercolour to Golden. Instead of a mix of two sugars as the monomers of the polymer, Aquazols® use a single monomer - a derivative of the heterocycle 2-oxazoline, which is a 5-membered ring containing 3 carbons, an oxygen and a nitrogen. 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline (2E2O) is the monomer, so it has an ethyl group attached to the carbon in between the N and the O. On its own, 2E2O is a liquid at room temperature and boils at over 125° C (over 250° F or almost 400 K), where as the polymerised form is very different. Firstly, Aquazol® doesn't quite exist - it's a product family. The long chains of 2E2O molecules joined together aren't always the same length, so PIC Inc. separates the mixes into different average sizes and sells them under different names - e.g. Aquazol® 5 has a mean size of 5 kDa (kilodaltons, one Dalton is the atomic mass unit, the atomic mass of carbon-12 being 12 Da), Aquazol® 50, Aquazol® 200 and Aquazol® 500 are also sold, with mean masses of 50 kDa, 200 kDa and 500 kDa. Aquazols® are solid at room temperature and dissolve in water, making clear solutions, and this is why Golden promotes them as being "better" than gum arabic and gum senegal because those polymers are slightly yellow and thus slightly mask some pigments - specifically purples can in theory look slightly duller owing to neutralisation of the colour BUT in practice, I'm not convinced it's really an issue given how microspically thin the layer of polymer is over the pigments when painting watercolour! Aquazols® mostly find their uses for adhering metal gilt and for use as general adhesives in fine art restoration as they don't produce acid over time - and have been used this way for well over 10 years - long before Golden got hold of them.

Whilst I've not yet done a side-by-side road test for this, I have done a "first look" video of the QoR watercolours and swatched out this set:

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!

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.

How toxic are watercolour paints really?

I get asked about this a lot and I see so many misconceptions and a lot of scaremongering and worrying. I put this video together to help people understand the hazards and risks a bit better.

Winner of Winsor & Newton Aurora Yellow watercolour paint

So further to the little YouTube Giveaway that I ran over the last couple of weeks, it's time to announce the winner of a very rare tube of Winsor & Newton Aurora Yellow watercolour paint - discontinued over 20 years ago!

I took the usernames of all the people who'd commented on the video AND subscribed to my blog AND YouTube channel, put your names into a spreadsheet, generated a random number in the next cell using the software then sorted them highest to lowest - the easiest way to pick someone totally at random was to do this then take the one at the top of the list:

Joe Maysky

As I'm going to be away for a short time from Friday onwards this week, I won't be able to ship it until next week - and I will be asking for addresses for spot-cards next week too for all the people who requested them.

There will be another giveaway in about 2 weeks time, so keep an eye out for it!

GIVEAWAY! Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolour in 017 Aurora Yellow

Aurora Yellow was a two-pigment (Cadmium zinc sulfide and Cadmium sulfide) just-warm-of-neutral opaque mid-yellow that Winsor and Newton discontinued in 1996. I have several tubes of it that I managed to obtain in a clearance not long ago. These are very rare and hard to come by, and I'm giving some of them away as follows:

* I will make as many spot-cards of 017 Aurora Yellow as people request it on this youtube video's comments.

* If you want a whole tube to yourself, just subscribe to my blog (box at the top of the right column) AND to my YouTube channel and then comment on this video by 2359h BST Sunday 31st July, saying why you want to win it. You must be over 13 years old to enter. Anyone under 18 will, if they win, need to nominate an over-18 to receive the paint as it contains two cadmium pigments. If you're not subscribed to both my blog AND my channel by the closing date, you're unfortunately not eligible to enter, sorry.

[Please note the tubes are from the 1980s - all the ones I've opened are totally fine inside, but obviously I cannot guarantee the contents - if they have separated from the binder, just stir before use]

Good luck!

Mijello Mission Gold - Pure Pigments set - a warning

DISCLAIMER: I have not used this set, I do not own this set, I have not even seen it in the flesh. I do not work for, nor am I affiliated to any paint manufacturers. These are my personal opinions and I have not been paid or given anything in return for this analysis. 

My primary concerns with this set relate to cheap dye-based pigments being used in lieu of mineral pigments such as Viridian, without them being clearly labelled with 'Hue'. When marketed as a 'pure pigments' set, most customers would assume they are actually getting the pigment-proper, not a hue. My secondary concern is that very cheap dye-based paints in this set are retailed for $20 per tube in open stock - they do have a high pigment-load but that doesn't justify the open stock prices when such cheap pigments are used. I'm not concerned by their performance, other than how many of the dyes used are light sensitive.

The Mijello Mission Gold Pure Pigments Set has been very popular recently, with a lot of artists and crafters buying it. The paints are not cheap - in open stock, some tubes are over $25 in the USA - they are not as easy to get hold of in the UK so I can't give UK prices. The incomparable Lindsay The Frugal Crafter has done a video review of this set recently and prior to doing so she asked me if I knew anything about it. I had a quick look at the composition at the time and the "Viridian" and "Cerulean Blue" both being Phthalocyanine dyes stuck out, but I didn't look at it much more. 

Since I watched Lindsay's review, I noticed some of the other colours had odd names or just looked a little unusual on the page. I've since been through all of the colours that Mijello list as being in the set. I have looked up their pigments in the Colour Index and here is a breakdown of what this set really contains. 

I am very concerned that it is mostly made up of very cheap dyes, yet the tubes retail in open stock in the USA at a very high price-point - some tubes are over $25. Mijello advertise "the finest pigments available", but they're not, by any means - they're cheap dyes in many cases, and not the typical pigments one would expect to find in a paint of that name - take a look a Viridian, Rose Madder, Cerulean Blue below, for example. I know "Viridian" is in Series C, as is "Cerulean Blue" - these are pretty expensive paints, yet contain nothing different from a cheap student line's Phthalocyanine dyes - this dye family are amongst the cheapest out there, so they're normally in the lowest priced series in any watercolour range. The ones that do use mineral pigments use cheaper ones like iron oxides etc. Some of the names are misleading - the Chinese White is a weak Titanium White, not a proper Chinese White.

What's worse is how many of the dyes are fugitive - I've noted this below. Now that is not to say that the paints are fugitive, as they may contain UV-resistant binders etc to protect the pigments, but as naked dyes, they are most certainly not lightfast. 

"Lemon Yellow" is not a typical lemon - it's Hansa Yellow 10G (PY3), which is fugitive when used very dilute, like in a thin wash. "Primary Yellow" is Benzimidazolone Yellow 154 (PY154) - this is as close to Process Yellow as you can get. "Permanent Yellow Deep" is Hansa yellow 65 (PY65) - usually in "Hansa Yellow Deep" type colours. "Red Orange" is your typical Pyrrol Orange (PO73) - nothing wrong with this. "Scarlet Lake" is Naphthol Red AS-D (PR112) - this is fugitive and will dull and go muddy. "Permanent Red" is Naphthol Red AS-D (PR112) - this is fugitive and will dull and go muddy over time - not very "permanent" is it?! [note the above are quite same-y on the page in Lindsay's review video - makes sense, same pigment] "Perm Red Deep" is Pyrolle Red (PR254) - again, fugitive - it darkens and blues over time. "Cherry Red" is Quinacridone Red (PR209 - there are two Quin Reds) - again, fugitive - it blues over time with exposure to light "Indian Red" is PR101 (Red Iron Oxide) as it should be. "Crimson Lake" is Quinacridone Crimson (PR202) - not a lake but not fugitive at least. "Permanent Rose" is Quinacridone Rose (PV19) as one would expect it to be - but this also blues with time - most Quinacridones are fugitive! "Perylene Maroon" is indeed Perylene Maroon (PR179) - this does fade a bit but it's not too bad. "Rose Madder" is made of PR176 Benzimidazolone Carmine (should be NR8 or NR9 if it's genuine or can be PR83 (Alizarin Crimson - synthetic rose madder, basically) or PR122 (Quinacridone Red) is sometimes used - PR176 is, as such, an odd choice) - this is fugitive and turns more blue as it fades so keep an eye on this one. "Permanent Magenta" is PR122 (Quinacridone Red) - this fades and neutralises - becomes less of a magenta and more of a red as it fades. "Cerulean Blue" is Phthalocyanine Blue BGS (PB15:3) - this is the blue-green Phthalo Blue - Cerulean Blue should by rights be a Cobalt Chromate mineral pigment, not a dye. "Prussian Blue" is indeed Prussian Blue (PB27) - this can brown in bright sunlight but it is totally reversible in the dark. "Cobalt Blue No. 2" is indeed Cobalt Blue (PB28) - cobalt aluminate/blue spinel - lovely granulating pigment. "Ultramarine Light" is Ultramarine Blue (PB29), as it should be. "Viridian" should be chromic hydroxide (PG18) but they have used Phthalocyanine Green BS (PG7). "Bamboo Green" is Phthalocyanine Green YS (PG36), hence why they look very same-y, they're the same pigment molecule, with slight modifications. "Yellow Ochre No. 2" is Hydrated Ferric Oxide (PY43), as it normally is. "Green Gold" - now this one is weird, they've used Nickel Azo Yellow (PY150), which is one of those grey-ish lemons - it's also a bit prone to fading but not much. Green Gold proper is Irgazin Yellow (PY129), which doesn't fade. "Red Brown" is Benzimidazolone Brown (PBr25) - this is quite nice as it's a synthetic dye brown - you should get good luminosity through it. "Vandyke Brown" is Brown Iron Oxide (PBr7) - this is usually used in Burnt Sienna, true Van Dyke Brown (NBr8) is Lignite, but Manganese Brown (PBr8) is often used instead. "Chinese White" is Titanium White (PW6) - Chinese White is usually either Zinc White (PW4) alone or mixed with Titanium White - the latter is the cheaper option, hence why I guess they have used it? Why not just call it Titanium White? Unless they made it so dilute that it is translucent and looks like Chinese White? "Ivory Black" is made from Lamp Black (PBk7) - this is not usual. PBk9 (Bone Black) is usually used for Ivory Blacks - note they are obviously all carbon but the impurities are different which impacts tone, granulation etc etc.

New Series - Colour Chemistry

So over the last week or so, I've had a lot of questions about pigments and paints and their behaviour - which is something I really don't mind - I'm more than happy to help people understand some of the whys you can do X or can't do Y of watercolour painting. This lead to me to have an idea, which I've now spun into a brand new YouTube series!

Colour Chemistry is probably going to be uploaded 1-2 times a week for now, until I run low on ideas, I guess! I've kicked off with two episodes thus far, which I've embedded below:

Episode 1 covers the absolute fundamental - what is colour? How does light work? What do we really mean by colour? What's wavelength and how does it relate to colour? And above all, what do we really see when looking at a paint on the page?

Episode 2 uncovers the hidden secret of Opera Rose, one of my all time favourite paints - its beautiful, ethereal pink is owing to a fluorescent dye as part of the binder. In this video I explain what fluorescence is - a little bit of fundamental quantum physics, but I promise you, it's at a level anyone can follow!

Storage: Watercolour Tubes

Increasingly, I want to use paint straight from the tube to get a more intense effect, so I need to find tubes easily - the tubes I threw into a drawer...and the writing is so small on them, it was taking ages! I temporarily had them sorted by colour in a plastic tray but I had too many paints...then I stumbled on this in Tiger (Flying Tiger in the USA - a wonderful Danish chain) and it turned out to be PERFECT! It is their Opbevarginsbokse (Storage Boxes), and comprises 3 tiered boxes that can be stacked in any order that lock together, plus a lid. Each box has 6 sections, so there's 18 sections in all. The sections are EXACTLY the right size for 5mL paint tubes! This might also work for people who can get to a Tiger shop :O)

My Winsor & Newton Artist's Watercolours are coded with numbers than ultimately run from 001 to 799 at present - though only about 100 are ever in use at a time, I have discontinued colours from 1979 to 2002, so those numbers I do need to consider. I split the top layer into 3 rows - "000", "100", "200" and each row has two sections e.g. "000-049" and "050 to 099". This allowed me to get all of them into the box with room to spare - there are two sections in the bottom layer free for something when the time comes.

View from above - showing the handled lid and the 6 sections of the top layer.

View from the front...yes I left the label on, I'm that much of a slattern.

The top layer from inside - all of these are Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolours but many different branding designs as I have paints from 1979 to present as I have a lot of discontinued old stock I got for £1 a tube this year.

Product Review: Sennelier Abstract Acrylic Paints

My local art stores only stock Daler and Rowney (which I like CRYLA and System 3 ranges of) and Pip Seymour (which I dislike - they have a nice range of earth colours but I dislike the almost jelly-like texture some of the colours have) acrylic paints - so when the local big-box store started selling Sennelier Abstract Acrylic Paints, I was intrigued. None of the colours were ones I really needed, but I don't have a neutral gold so I picked up a pack of 028 Iridescent Gold for a mere £2.00 - it was on sale and is normally £4.00 there, and on Amazon UK it is £7.63, so this was a pretty good saving! When I got to the checkout, I was given a tiny pack of 385 Primary Blue for free as a sample. When I did my test comparisons below, I had assumed this would be either a Process Blue (i.e. Cyan) or a neutral blue, like a Cobalt Blue (Hue) - so I used the latter (System 3) for comparison. When I read the package and realised it was a Phthalo Blue (PB15:3 Phthalocyanine Blue BGS), I thought that calling it "Primary Blue" was a bit stupid - every painter the world over knows Phthalo Blue would be called Phthalo Blue, right? I don't get why they didn't use the normal name. I used System 3 707 Rich Gold as the comparison for the Iridescent Gold as it was the only gold I had to hand.

Sennelier Abstract are sold in pouches rather than tubes and come in at 120mL (4 US fl. oz.; 4.2 UK fl. oz.) - so let's normalise that to a current Amazon UK price of £6.36/100mL. In comparison, System 3 707 Rich Gold is £5.52 for 150mL (5 US fl. oz.; 5.3 UK fl. oz.), which normalises to £4.60/100mL. CRYLA 707 Rich Gold is £9.25/75mL (2.5 US fl. oz.; 2.2 UK fl. oz.), which normalises to £12.33/100mL:

Normalised prices:
Sennelier Abstract 028 Iridescent Gold = £6.36/100mL.
Daler & Rowney System 3 707 Rich Gold = £4.60/100mL.
Daler & Rowney CRYLA 707 Rich Gold = £12.33/100mL.

That puts Sennelier Absract halfway between the two in terms of price. The paint coming in pouches intrigued me - not as easy to store as tubes I guess. The paint is marketed as a "heavy body" paint but to be honest, even just feeling it through the packaging, it's really not - it's a little heavier than System 3 Standard Body but nowhere near as thick as the Heavy Body or CRYLA versions.

So how do they look? I painted them onto Daler & Rowney System 3 Acrylic Paper with a dry Simply Golden Taklon 1" flat wash (one of my favourite ranges of acrylic brushes even though they are the cheapest things around!) to see how they came out. The advertised properties of the four paints are:

Sennelier Abstract 028 Iridescent Gold - PY3 + PBk7 (Hansa Yellow 10G + Lamp Black) on mica, lightfastness n.r. (not listed), transparent.
Daler & Rowney System 3 707 Rich Gold - PW6 + PR101 (Titanium White + Synthetic Iron Oxide Red) on mica, lightfastness ***, transparent.

Sennelier Abstract 385 Primary Blue - PB15:3 (Phthalocyanine Blue BGS). Lightfastness ***, semi-transparent.
Daler & Rowney System 3 110 Cobalt Blue (Hue) - PW6 + PB29 (Titanium White + Ultramarine Blue), lightfastness ***, opaque.

Top to bottom: Sennelier Abstract in Primary Blue and Iridescent Gold then Daler & Rowney System 3 in Cobalt Blue and Rich Gold.

So, my verdict on them. Firstly, the body really is not heavy body - they're very liquid and actually reminded me of Daler & Rowney Graduate Acrylic in that regard. The colour intensity is quite good and in the image above, I applied roughly equal blobs of each of the 4 paints - you can see the two blues have a similar pigment load, but the golds are a bit different - the Sennelier gold has clear patches of paper showing through - but the Daler & Rowney gold doesn't.

A close-up of Sennelier 028 Iridescent Gold - you can see clear patchiness where the pigment load just isn't as good and the tooth of the paper really shows through. It's advertised as being a transparent colour, so I would expect that to some degree, but not patchiness - that's not acceptable. The sparkle was pretty much as one would expect and the colour a nice neutral gold - I have no negatives I can say in those regards.

And now Sennelier 385 Primary Blue - the coverage is better here but it does seem thin in a few places - for a semi-transparent colour, that's kind of usual but I did feel it just didn't want to go as far on the page as the System 3 colours did.

Here is the Daler & Rowney System 3 707 Rich Gold (Imitation) for comparison - you can see much better coverage and even in a standard-body paint, there are clear brushmarks - a heavy-body paint should show those, which shows how totally not a heavy-body paint the Sennelier ones are. The coverage is good and even - there is no patchiness and whilst the texture of the tooth shows through, you can't physically see bare tooth.

And Daler & Rowney System 3 110 Cobalt Blue (Hue) - this still shows brush-marks like the above even though it's standard-body - there's a bit of thin, patchiness at the top left - where the tooth does show through - this is an opaque colour so it does fall down a bit on that regard but I think this is more a symptom of my brushwork as I threw this one down last of the 4 before getting something to eat!

Sennelier Abstract Heavy-Body Acrylic Paints

Packaging:

Looks: *******--- 7/10
Recyclableness: Not Known
Readability: ********** 10/10
Ease of use: ********** 10/10

Product:
Quality: ******---- 6/10 (it was pretty good in terms of the colours themselves and the pigments used, but as it wasn't heavy-body, I felt this was totally misleading - the patchy nature of the application compared to System 3 really let this paint down, too)
Value for Money: *****----- 5/10 There are better quality, true heavy-body acrylic paints with similar grade pigments available at a lower price - therefore I cannot consider this good value and the outright lie re: being heavy-body is not good at all.

OVERALL RATING: 4/10