The days are still cold and wintry so here’s a little something to brighten your day. If you have been reading my recent posts you will know that I opened an online store in the New Year – doricdragons.com
If you use the code EarlGreyandABiscuit, when ordering from my shop (orders over £40) you will get 10% off your whole order. Hurry up though, it only lasts until the end of this month (February 2020)!
I am adding to the store every week, so keep checking back for new items.
As you can see from this I am still in watercolour/animal mode. Quite different to my usual abstract stuff! I wasn’t quite so happy with this painting of a hare but there are some parts that I like, particularly the “hairiness”. That wasn’t intended to be a pun by the way!
I used Roman Szmal Aquarius watercolour paints for this, they have become my absolute favourite watercolours. My brushes are Kum Memory Point and a Rosemary & Co dagger brush, half inch, sable blend. I love the dagger brush and it gets used for about 90 percent of my painting. You can achieve broad marks or very fine lines from just the one brush. I am using it so much that I will have to get myself a couple of back ups. Rosemary and Co brushes are such excellent value for money, really good quality and they are hand made.
I still have a few more animals that I need to paint but I am getting very distracted doing some vinyl cutting designs for putting on to bags and t shirts. More about that in another, upcoming post. Speak to you soon!
As promised here is my review of the lovely set of 12 Aquarius watercolour paints that Roman Szmal kindly sent me to review. I had already bought quite a few colours last year from the full range of 140 colours. Within that range there are 117 single pigment colours, meaning that you can create nice clean mixes with predictable results. As I mentioned in a previous post there are also quite a lot of beautiful granulating pigments. I absolutely love these paints, so when I got the chance to try some more colours I jumped at it.
I always find using a more limited palette very interesting and I think that this set, which contains colours that were chosen by the artist Artur Przybysz is a very useful group of colours. Ideal as a sketching palette.
The set comprises of full pans of the following colours: 206 Hansa Yellow Medium Py74, 308 Nickel Azo Yellow Py150, 320 Cadmium Vermilion Pr108, 323 Aquarius Red Pr214, 225 Phthalo Blue (Rs) Pb15: 6, 405 Cobalt Blue Pb28, 401 Przybysz’s Gray Pb29 / Pr177 / Pg26, 230 Phthalo Green ( Ys) Pg36, 108 Natural Sienna Light Py43, 115 Red Ochre Pr102, 239 Caput Mortuum Pr102, 131 Van Dyck Brown Nbr8
I like the fact that all the information about which pigments are used in each colour is clearly visible on the box. The paint is heavily pigmented and lifts readily out of the pans. Because they are full pans it is much easier to get your brush into them, especially if, like me, you use quite large brushes a lot of the time.
They come in a plastic and cardboard tray with a cardboard sleeve, perfectly serviceable as it is, or it is easy to transfer pans to a different tin if you wanted to. I am quite happy with them in their original box. It is nice and light to carry around. I can see me using this box quite a lot for sketching when I am out walking.
As is usual for me when trying out new paints, I proceeded to see what sort of dark mixes that I could create. I find that I often need greys or “blacks” that are nuanced towards certain colours, so for example a greenish grey or one with a slightly pink undertone maybe, depending on the subject that I am painting.
My examples below look a bit untidy but it is how I always do it, by mixing colours on the paper, rather than on the palette. As you can see there are some fabulous mixes that you can get from this set. Either of the reds mixed with Phthalo blue and green give a very deep colour. The other sheet is mainly green mixtures with a couple of other colour mixes thrown in for good luck! By the way the paper that I use for trying out paints is from a Clairefontaine Goldline Watercolour Studio Glued Pad, 24 x 32 cm, 200 g, 100 Sheets.
The only colour that I initially had my doubts about was the Van Dyck Brown. It is quite a neutral sort of brown, granular but also with a strange translucency to it. This pigment has the same characteristics regardless of brand, so I am not implying that there is any kind of deficiency in it in this set.
However, when I actually came to paint for real with the Aquarius paints I found it very useful for areas where I wanted a dark brownish black. The painting of a fox at the start of this post is an example where I used it on the ears and round the eyes. A true black would have been much too harsh and whilst I could have mixed up a colour it was handy to have it ready to use. The other colour that was very handy in this painting was the Red Ochre.
Also if you wanted a bright violet you won’t get it from the colours in this set of 12 but to be honest it is very rare that I need a bright violet and I can mix some lovely subdued violets from this set. There are quite a lot of violets, and colours that will mix violet, in the rest of the full range of 140 colours of Aquarius paints though, so you could always get a couple of those if you needed them.
What you do get with the Artur Przybysz’s set is the ability to mix a wide range of realistic greens and lots of beautiful dark colours, along with the colours that you will need for sketching out in the countryside or town, such as gentle cobalt blue for skies and plenty of ways to create mixes for stones and bricks.
In conclusion this little set is wonderful value for money, in the UK it can be bought from Jackson’s Art for £39, or from Szal Art in Poland for 28.43 Euros. There are other European suppliers but I have bought from these two before so feel happy to recommend them.
I hope that you feel encouraged to try some of Roman Szmal’s paints, I don’t think that you will regret it!
I recently launched a new shopping site, www. doricdragons.com and have been steadily uploading images of the items that I have for sale. Today’s uploads included some wildlife coasters that I have been making with a little heat press that I got last week. It has given me so many ideas for making things, using my artwork, I can’t wait to try them all out.
The original fox painting was created using paints by Roman Szmal Art and I shall be posting a review of them this coming week, so I hope that you will come back and look for it.
First of all I must apologise, as this review is long overdue. A couple of months ago, after reading glowing reviews of Roman Szmal‘s Aquarius watercolour paints, I decided to splash out and buy some. I got a bit carried away and ordered 53 pans of paint. Part of the reason for ordering so many was that I ordered them from Poland: https://www.szal-art.pl/szmal-aquarius-akwarele-w-kostce_1857_8170/ It was more economical on postage to buy in bulk. Another reason was the very reasonable cost of the paint, from 1.75 euros per full pan.
Since then, Jackson’s Art in the UK : https://www.jacksonsart.com/roman-szmal-aquarius-watercolour-paint have started stocking them, although they are a little more expensive there, starting at £2.50 a pan. To be honest, I would probably order from Poland again as they were sent out the same day as I ordered and only took a week and a half to arrive.
I had meant to do a review as soon as I received them but time got away from me. As you can see I have been playing with these quite a bit since I bought them. These two boxes are cheap ones that I bought off Amazon and filled with the Aquarius paints. All except two of the pans in them are Aquarius. One, Cobalt Teal, was a colour that was out of stock when I ordered, so I substituted a Daniel Smith tube paint in that pan. The other non- Aquarius paint is another Daniel Smith, Serpentine Genuine, which I couldn’t find an equivalent of in the Aquarius paints.
I have to say that I absolutely adore these paints. As you will see if you look at my doodles below, I am fascinated by granulating colours (grannies). Many of the Aquarius paints granulate beautifully. Another thing that I love are what I call the creeper paints, which force their way into other pigments. So for example Cherry Quinacridone Red (PR209) put down alongside Perylene Green (PBk31) will push into the patch of green and all but take over. Many of the quinacridone colours behave in this way. Another example is Cobalt Turquoise (PB36) and Naples Yellow Deep (PBr24), this time it is the turquoise that pushes the yellow.
I very much enjoy using these paints, they are rich and lift up readily from the pan. There are a total of 140 colours! 116 of the colours, are single pigment colours which is great and the ones that are mixes are really useful ones. There are a couple of lovely greys, Shadow Violet and Przybysz’s Grey as well as some colours that settle into their component colours as they dry giving some beautiful effects. All of the colours are wonderful. 🙂
I think that as soon as I can save up some more money I will be trying the rest of colours on offer. I can thoroughly recommend these paints to anyone, amateur or professional. They are high quality paints at an affordable price.
As I have mentioned before on this blog, I am intrigued by the patterns that I see in nature and the fact that they are repeated on different scales. From blood vessels to river deltas, these fractal patterns are everywhere.
This often ends up with some of my work having a slightly visceral quality. I even did a series of paintings called “visceral landscapes”.
This painting included papers that I had previously decorated with acrylic paint and then were then collaged on to the painting. I also used various bits of paper from magazines. After the collage I worked more layers of paint until I was happy with it.
It turned out more obviously “visceral” than usual!
I showed it to a few people recently and it has been interesting to see the reactions of those viewing the painting. It seems to be that they either love it or loathe it. What is your opinion?
I am still on my mini painting binge, the palette is a little different this time, inspired by summer woodland. A mix of watercolour, acrylic and ink, 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I have mounted them in 6 x 8 inch mounts to give them more impact.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Doricdragons
Here are four more little abstracts. This series is turning out to be fun. Challenging but also an opportunity to try out various ideas.
These are the same size as yesterday’s bunch, 2.5 x 3.5 inches, in a 6 x 8 inch off white mount. I used watercolour, ink, Neocolor 2 and a touch of acrylic on watercolour paper.
I will be putting these into a local gallery, Elgin Gallery, rather than on Etsy as I did with yesterday’s selection, which you can view here.
I have been playing about with my acrylic paints, inks and Neocolors. I used heavy weight water colour paper as a base.
The ink is from Sakura’s Pigma pens, which are pigment based and fade proof. I especially love the brush tip version.
The Neocolor crayons are water soluble, so will dissolve with water to create a watercolour effect. I used to be sceptical about their usefulness, until I got some to try. Now I wouldn’t be without them. They are great to take sketching too.
I love trying to recycle or upcycle things. I hate to get rid of something that might potentially be useful. I have had this organiser hanging around for ages but it has never been used properly as I have another which is better suited to keeping my information handy.
I am always looking for ways to take a sketching kit along with me and I have various set ups, depending on the amount of room that I have in the bag that I will be carrying (if any). I had a play around with my organiser and found that I could fit a reasonable amount of kit in it. I ended up with a set of Inktense paints, which are a lot of fun. Lightfast and water resistant when dry. You can layer them very easily and the colours are strong. I also fit in a pair of containers for water. They are supposed to be for oil paint but work well for watercolours too.
I also cut some paper to fit, I used Zerkall printmaking paper in this case. It is a lovely smooth paper and takes both pen and watercolour really well. I have a great Bind punch which I used to make the holes, it is adjustable (A5/A6/A7) and I can get the holes in just the right position for my organiser. It is available here.
The pocket in the organiser holds some travel brushes, pencil and eraser. I forgot to show my pen which fits in the loop next to the paper. I haven’t room for a water bottle but I usually carry one for drinking, so I will use that.
All in all, I am pleased with how it turned out. I have only taken it out once so far but hopefully it will get more use soon!