Christmas Stash

First up is a Meeden watercolour easel.  It’s really lightweight, with all the metal parts folding down into something tiny in a bag that would never lose you a game of Buckaroo.  There are two big white bits that don’t fold down but can be carried around in a bag with all the rest of my gear – they’re not that much bigger than the watercolour blocks that I paint on.  Anyway, on to features.  The white panel at the top can be put to any angle, including horizontal, so is definitely good for watercolour.  And then there’s the other white bit that could be used as a palette but which I’ll be using as a shelf for my palette, brushes, water, etc.  I definitely need a shelf there.  When the sun’s out again, I’ll be doing lots of plein air painting around the village rather than just working from photos at home.  And if I make it to Landscape Artist Of The Year as a wildcard again, I’ll fit in a bit better – last time I was one of only two that turned up without easels.

Next up are three granulating primatek Daniel Smith watercolours, Mayan blue genuine, hematite violet genuine and green apatite genuine.  I had my eye on these after watching a couple of Jean Lurssen videos and, indeed, those three swatches come from her videos, the first two here and the third one here.  The granulating quality of these paints is amazing, as is the way that the green and purple seem to separate into separate component colours as they dry.  I’m really looking forward to trying these out.

And finally, I now have an 18-colour Mijello palette – the blue one rather than the fuchsia.  I’ll  waiting until the sun comes out before I fill it with colours so have time to think about what will go in there.  There’s room for my existing squad of twelve colours.  The extra six will probably be my three regular opaques (cadmium red, cadmium yellow and sepia) and the three new Daniel Smith colours.  That leaves no room for Payne’s grey (a colour that I used to use for skies but have gone off in recent years as I’ve moved on to using the same three colours in the sky as in most of the rest of the painting) or titanium white (which would probably get contaminated in the palette).  The tough choice will be over how to arrange the colours in the palette: whether to leave the Daniel Smiths occupying three guest slots on the end or whether to treat them as official squad members and housed alongside similar colours.  I’ll have to think about that one.  Maybe I’ll decide after giving the Daniel Smiths a go.

A cracking stash, you must admit.