Pencil Shavings

Special Delivery!

If you have been following the blog for a while you will know that I've been working a lot with Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks.

I really enjoy how they work for me.  One day while we were outside painting my husband commented that he wondered why watercolours weren't made this way all along.

After working with them for a few months I can say that this is really a great medium for me - I think that they suit my working style perfectly.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Daniel Smith thanking me for trying out the Watercolor Sticks and reviewing them in the blog.  They offered to let me try out some of the new colours they have just released.  I picked Aureolin, Quinacridone Red, Cerulean Blue (Chromium),  and Rich Green Gold.  I received them on Thursday and the kind people ate Daniel Smith included a really great pastel case that fits the sticks perfectly.  I had been thinking of trying some for my travel kit, so now I have one and I'll let you know how it works for me.

So far I've been testing these new colours and they create some lovely mixes, I can hardly wait to paint with them.  I'm thinking of adding some new posts talking about colour mixing with the sticks and showing what works for me and what doesn't.  The primary triad that I just got is beautiful and I know I'm going to love using them.

A Big Thank You to the wonderful people at Daniel Smith (esp. you Deborah!)

365 Days of Art - Day 81 - Crunchy! (Saunder's Waterford Paper)

I got some new paper to try out a few weeks ago.  It's Saunder's Waterford watercolour paper.  I got the Hot Press paper which is the smoothest of the watercolour papers.

Getting something new always requires some testing. So I tried traditional watercolour on it (the Sweet peas that have in my ArtFire store are on this paper) and on Monday for part of my hour of art I looked at it again.  It seems to have a slightly more raised tooth than the Arches hot pressed paper that I normally use, (just from touch mind you) so I thought I would try it with some coloured pencils.

It does have a very fine tooth to ti which makes it great for coloured pencils.  I like how the colour laid down on it, and even adding a bit of water for a wash didn't reduce the tooth for more pencil work.

I was really happy how these little apples came out and it was a nice afternoon working on them - slowly I'm getting into the idea of still life work.

Daniel Smith Watercolor Sticks: Product Review

I have been curious about these Watercolor Sticks since they first came out last fall.  I saw them in the Daniel Smith catalogue and saw the demonstrations and wondered how they would work for me.

I want to try doing more watercolour sketching while I am out and about.  I have a wonderful little half pan watercolour tin from Daniel Smith that I take when I travel.  I love the palette and little mixing wells, and the fact that I can put my own tube colours in the pans.  But it's not really convenient to put in my purse to have handy when the kids are in swimming lessons.

I got my set of Watercolor Sticks on Monday last week and I've been using them every day since then trying to see what they will do for me, and all the ways I can use them. They are handmade, about 3 inches long, and have no wax or oil binders, just enough gum arabic to hold them together. I put them in to a little cardboard box along with a size 4 travel brush and my moleskine watercolour sketchbook.  That was my whole sketching kit when I went to the coffee shop while my kids were in yoga class.

When I got to the coffee shop I ordered my latte, and asked for a small glass of water.  Then I sat down for an hour and experimented.

I drew on the page directly with the dry sticks, using them like pastels.  I layered my colours on and then when I was satisfied I wet the whole thing to see how the colours would react.

I did a light sketch with them and then painted directly, taking the paint from the stick with a wet brush.

And I wet the page, and drew on it with the dry stick.  Getting a really great loose picture. 

I tried wetting the sticks and drawing on the dry paper... (by far the most vivid application of colour)

I also did a hybrid kind of thing where I wet a small shape and tapped the stick on the wet shape to form my painting.  I like the folk arty feel of that – and I may use that for pieces at home, but it's time intensive  and not really a “sketching” technique.

I used the sticks on hot pressed, cold pressed and rough papers.  And I can say that if you are going to do direct drawing, either wet or dry, hot pressed paper is probably your best bet.  The rough really catches the pigment and unless I really scrubbed I couldn't smooth the lines out.  But for doing washes and quick paintings using the sticks like half pans (taking the pigment from them with wet brush) they are just as vibrant and workable as regular Daniel Smith paints.  And when they dry there is no "cloudiness" like I sometimes get with watercolour crayons or pencils.

They are seemingly expensive at $12 a stick, but I can tell you that they perform beautifully and with all the painting I've been doing this week they still look very new (aside from my drawing with the wet stick which did eat up more of the stick... eating up being a relative term one corner has been worn on the Cobalt Blue stick)   Daniel Smith says that each stick has the equivalent of two tubes of paint.  You could easily get the six primaries (there is a cool triad and a warm triad) and mix absolutely anything you need.  The extra landscape colours, the greens and browns are convenient but not necessary.

Mixing the colours on the page makes for a really great lively painting as well.

I am very happy with these sticks and I will be using them as my sketch kit this summer and will post the results as I am able to.