Watercolor Dirtbag
Most watercolor brands offer a PB60 paint, often called Indanthrone or Indathrene Blue. As far as I know, there is no official distinction between the words Indanthrone (with an “o”) and Indanthrene (with an “e”) – I think they are synonyms. But I own two PB60 paints, one called Indanthrone and one called Indanthrene, and … Read more
Indian Red and Venetian Red are both very opaque, granulating earth reds made from synthetic iron oxide (PR101). Indian Red is more violet-toned (earth maroon), diluting to dusty pink; Venetian Red is more orange-toned (earth scarlet), diluting to peach. In the versions I used, Da Vinci Indian Red was significantly more granulating than Winsor & Newton Venetian Red, especially noticeable in masstone.
I’ve just spent a week in Vancouver in early November, what my aunt described as “the worst time to visit Vancouver” due to the rain and fog, but I had fun! I like rain and fog. Plus, it was much cheaper than visiting in the summer. I didn’t know what colors I’d need, so I … Read more
As I’ve used my Fall Foliage Palette outside, I’ve run into some challenges that made me want to swap a color. I thought I’d go through my problem-solving thought process and then show you the revised palette.
I spent most of October refining my Autumn Palette and painting foliage indoors and out! Plus, I updated my “Billy Idol with paintbrush” logo, and I did a tutorial from Molly Hashimoto.
I spent much of October painting autumn foliage. Much of it was outdoors/plein air/in person, but sometimes I saw a great tree and took a snap to paint later at home, and I actually did. This is the first month where I did a lot of painting from my own, very recent photos. Let’s see how it went!
You know I love a dot card, and I recently tried out the dot card for Van Gogh. Van Gogh is a student-grade brand by the Dutch company Royal Talens, which also makes the professional grade brand Rembrandt. Along with from Winsor & Newton’s Cotman line, Van Gogh is the other student grade brand that is often recommended, and I thought I’d check it out to see if (1) I should be recommending it to others and (2) I might want to consider supplementing my pro-grade collection with some student-grade paints if they are nice and/or unusual enough!
Here are my hot takes! I put a star (⭐) next to the ones I especially liked.
I recently participated in a local “Yart Sale” (yard sale + art sale), where I made my first art sales. Since I’d already put together all my sellable art and purchased plastic protectors and things, I figured why not take it online and sell off the rest of my stock online. I’m in the art … Read more
I haven’t engaged much with my username on this blog, so you’ve gotten a lot more straightforward art talk than any Billy Idol theming; but the phrase “Rebel Yellow” popped into my head and I just had to make a palette. Billy Idol’s signature color is black – as in black leather. He’s also known … Read more
It’s really hard to compare watercolor paper on price vs quality. For one thing, the quality is highly subjective. While some factors make watercolor paper more likely to work well with water and to be pleasurable to use (weight, cotton content, sizing), you can’t guarantee that you’ll like a paper or that it will work with your style until you try it out.
It’s even difficult to compare on the basics of how much is costs, since every paper comes in a variety of different sizes and price points. How does $30 for 20 sheets of 9×12 really compare to $20 for 12 sheets of 8×10? It’s a math problem and also a pragmatic problem (which size do I prefer to paint on, or can I more easily cut to a size I prefer to paint on?)
Well: I’ve at least attempted to solve the math part by making a spreadsheet.