The humble painting knife has experienced a resurgence in popularity in the past year or two. Paintings completed with a painting knife have a wonderful texture and energy that many collectors find irresistible.
When starting my watercolour journey I had no idea how confusing it would be. I thought at least the process of procuring supplies would be easy – after all, you simply need brushes, paint and paper, right? Well, was I in for a surprise – as I’m sure many others starting out have found. The amount of choices out there with regards to art supplies are ginormous, and, to figure out which ones you are going to need is certainly a difficult task.
No medium is complete without the correct surface, however – and none more so than pastel. Apply pastel to the wrong paper and even the slightest touch will smear the delicate pigment everywhere. I do believe that this is the reason so many people consider pastels to be messy. Marry your purely pigmented little friend to the correct surface though, and magic happens!
Just when you thought you have tried out all types of pastel paper, along comes a new one that promises to be better. I have heard much about Clairefontaine’s Pastelmat paper, but I was a little sceptical. After all good pastel paper is plentiful. Would Pastelmat offer something different? Keep reading to find out plus check out the video review below.
Firstly let’s get the CMYK acronym out into the open – it stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Yes, I know ‘black’ is with a ‘B’ so why not CMYB? Well, ‘B’ is already used for ‘Blue’ in RGB, so it would be confusing. The ‘K’ apparently stands for Key (or perhaps its just the last letter of black… who knows). CMYK is the standard in the printing industry, and pretty much most of what you see these days, by way of printed media, is CMYK. Anyone who’s ever owned a colour inkjet printer is sure to recall buying ink cartridges in those four colours, with which you could print almost anything – even full-colour photographs.
We love clutch pencils at Artsavingsclub, but what is a pencil without lead? Luckily Caran D’Ache has got you covered with their perfect 2mm lead.
Caran D’Ache prides themselves on pristine quality, Swiss-made art supplies, and that is noticeable throughout the entire offering, even in smaller products like their lead refills.
Mixed media paper sounds vague to me. What is it really for? In this review, I got to find out just how versatile mixed media paper pads can be. In this case, the block of paper coming from Fabriano, a company that is well known for making quality art paper. Let’s take a closer look.
White paper is certainly the tradition when it comes to drawing and a quick browse through any art store will give you an array of white papers to choose from, for many different uses. Every one of us has, at some point, drawn on white paper, and what one learns, is to use dark lines and tones to build up the form to create a picture.
I think I might want to be Diane Shearer when I grow up. Yep, a funny way to start a blog interview, but if you’ve had a look through her website and Instagram posts you will understand why a nature-lover like myself would be enthralled. Diane is an adventurer at heart with a creative soul and has found the perfect way to combine her two passions. Her images speak of someone with a love for high and wide places and remind of a birds’ eye view. I love the details she inserts so effortlessly into her sketches – flowers, trees and interesting cloud formations adorn her contoured images. She enjoys suggesting movement and life and I can feel the energy in her drawings.
The debate about whether brush quality makes a difference to your painting continues. Something along the lines of the amateur blames his tools if the work is not good enough.
