This article is one that's been bubbling away in my head for a while. It came to the boil last night when I asked an AI app to critique one of my...
Category: Gear
Fixative On Soft Pastels
Before my next painting, which will be in soft pastels, a long overdue experiment. If I’m ever to sell soft pastel paintings (and I'm planning on...
The NeoLucida XL
I’ve invested in some new gear. This has been on the cards for a while but it was having to measure out three grids of different sizes for the...
Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Exclusive Colours
Today's a busy day, what with this being the first of three planned posts. Another birthday present to try out, or at least a freebie that came...
M Graham Landscape Set Swatching
I had just the right amount of time to spare today to do some swatching, and it's the turn of the M Graham landscape watercolour set. It's an odd...
Soft Pastel Swatches
The swatching continues with the soft pastels. As I said before I have a set of 28 portrait colours, a set of 14 cloudy sky colours and a set of 14...
Crystalline Watercolour Swatching
Looks like today's going to be a swatching day. I started with the crystalline watercolours. These are made by Jackmans and are only available...
2024 Birthday Stash 2: New Media
And here's the second post of birthday stash. Here's what we have: There are loads of soft pastels. I’ve never used these before but, if...
Sparkle Brush
So it was my birthday yesterday. I have three new art books and have ordered a fourth, along with some interesting new art gear, with some birthday...
Charcoal Paintings Fixed And Up For Sale
No painting today as it's the first Sunday in the month, which means tea and homemade cakes up at the local church. Instead, I looked at the sun...
Two New Artgraf Blocks
I’ve meaning to do this for ages but I finally got around to buying red and green Artfraf blocks to extend my collection to eleven colours. I'll...
Inktense Pencil Squad Tinkering
I'm taking a day off from painting, so here's a post with some swatching. I saw that Jacksons were doing deals this week on inktense pencils, so I...
Random Painting Idea Generator
I might have retired as an actuary but you can't keep me away from spreadsheets. On my walk today, rather than thinking about what painting I...
Introducing Potters’ Pink To The Team
It’s been a couple of years since I picked up three Daniel Smith Primatek colours for Christmas and I'm ready now to discuss their future. First...
More Coloured Pencil Solvent Testing
After yesterday's late night fun, I kicked off today with three more experiments with coloured pencil solvents. First, I had an overnight thought...
Testing Coloured Pencil Solvent On Neil McCarthy
It's been a day for experimentation today. After reading the Alyona Nickelsen book, I thought I really should give solvents a go with coloured...
Glazed Balls
My year end painting hiatus is still on but swatching doesn't count as painting in my book and there's an experiment that I've been meaning to try...
Artist Assist App
I discovered something new today, thanks to Liron Yankonsky's YouTube channel. It's the Artist Assist App. It seems to be a website at the moment...
Charcoal Swatching
My Jackson’s order finally made it through yesterday so I was almost ready to start using the charcoals but first I set out to the shops. I...
Birthday Stash 2023
Right. The post has arrived and I'm pretty sure that I won't be getting any more birthday presents for another year, so it's time for me to share...