Favorites Friday

Favorite's Friday

Hello Zombi-corns, lets see the favorite's of the week.

So so sorry for the huge delay in this but I will be talking about my absolute favorite watercolor paper in this post as well as why you should be buying high quality material for your art.

 

So probably my most favorite medium is watercolor, I love it's raw look and feel and is very relaxing to use. Some of you may've noticed in some of my most recent watercolor paintings that the paper was wrinkling or warped in spots. That is because it was cheap light weight paper. I believe it was a canson roll of watercolor paper, it was about $30. Now if you're doing large multimedia pieces I think this paper would be good, or if your using it for mostly dry mediums. But if your going to be doing wet on wet painting then this is not for you.

 You can see the warping in these in progress shots. The paper is completely dry in these.      

 

Probably the biggest problem with this was stretching it to get it to lay flat, this is where most of the warping took place. Also if you blended too much on a wet area the paper would start to disintegrate.

But I finally got a paycheck that I could use for art supplies and I got a three pack of Arches 300 lb cold press watercolor paper from dickblick.com.

This paper is my absolute favorite let's go over some pros and cons of it.

Pros:

Paint can grip onto it.

 



 



 

 It has a deckled edge.

 

 

 

It (virtually) doesn't warp.

 

Colors stay vibrant through drying. And blacks stay rich and are not chalky.

 

 

 

 

Cons:

Cost,

three sheets from dickblick was around $50, and shipping. You can find a 5 pack on Amazon but there is a small about of uncertainty when buying from them, coming from experience when I've ordered items from their and gotten the wrong item or it never showed up. 

 

Bowing

While it wont warp or crease like the lighter weight paper it will bow off the surface if you are wetting a large area. Because of it's stiffness though it's not much of a deterrant for me.

 

Griping paint

If you are an abstract painter or are wanting a lot of running paint and drips then this may not be for you., The reason I like this paper is because I can wet a small area and the water wont run down the page because of the paper's absorbency but some people may not like that.

 

Deckled Edges.

The deckled edge is great for presentation and gives it a high quality finesse but if you are doing an open composition and are blending out of the page the deckled edge can cause the paint to bloom if you are not careful, usually if I have this happen I can blend it out.

 

 

So there is a few facts for anyone wanting to experiment with this, I will also show how I plan on mounting these for an upcoming student show in the next coming weeks.

 

Now why to buy the higher quality stuff than buying budget friendly. Well it's simply because it will enhance your artwork as well as enhance it to other people. Most of my teachers grade very critically on materials and presentation, though they do all understand that we are all poor college kids.

But just like trying to budget to buy healthier options at the grocery store, you need to budget yourself to be able to buy the right supplies especially if this is what field you will be going into in life. Also you will usually find that higher quality art supplies respond and work better than cheaper materials.

 

Well that's it for this week, I will try and be more attentive to the blog, this week is spring break and I am planning on doing a lot of art things; painting, speed drying paintings, and framing pieces for a show. I will let you all know how it goes I hope you have a good weekend and spring break!

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Favorite's Friday

  

Favorite's Friday

Hello Zombi-corns, let's look at the things that helped me make it through the week.

Happy New Year, I recently bought some art supplies and beauty supplies with my Christmas money and I am so excited to share with you.

First off the art supplies, all from Hobby Lobby.

 

   First off and what I'm most excited for these three oval mop round brushes in sizes 3/4", 1/2", and 6, and all from one of my favorite brands, Masters Touch. The smallest brush I purchased was a replacement for one that I used constantly in my Painting class this semester, and I was absolutely thrilled to find bigger sizes. These are perfect for oil painting and skin, or extremely smooth blending. If you do use these with oil paint I would say that you need to use a specific brush cleaner such as the one pictured above in the bottom right corner. These brushes are incredibly soft and will start to shed very easily with heavy paints if not cared for properly.

 

 These are new to me and I mostly bought these for the holder to use with charcoal. These are pastel sticks from Master's Touch. I have been experimenting with them. Here is something I did with them for example.

 These are very comparable to graphite I think but denser and less messy. The density makes them a little harder to blend but overall good for sketching I think. They do not get as dark as charcoal though, when I tried to layer them they only stayed a dense gray and would almost scratch the layer under it off.

This is a Hake Brush, I've never used one but seen people use it. This is going to be used for drafting, which means I will use it with charcoal or any drawing medium that I may get eraser shreds on and don't want to smudge. You can get a larger version of this and is actually for drafting called a dusting/drafting brush. I liked this for the better control.

This little guy is an essential for anyone doing charcoal or large drawings and want to blend/smudge without riddling their pieces with fingerprints. I have used this before, I will probably cut this into smaller pieces for my tool box. I prefer to use this for smudging charcoal because after a while the charcoal and friction of the paper will irritate my hands. You can get large pieces of this online, it may be marketed as something for car cleaning but it is the same material. I'll also be experimenting with other types of leather for drawing.

   And lastly, a new travel sketchbook that exhibits my insatiable wanderlust and a canvas pad for oil studies. I was going to try and test the canvas pad with oils and my new oval mop brushes but I didn't want to bring in my oil paints, partly because the weather got bad and they are in my car and because it stinks up my house and my mom doesn't like it. I will test these out when I get back to my dorm tho, I will probably pull the sheets out and tape it to my drawing board like I would any other paper.

 

Now I didn't show a detail shot about the brush shampoo because I have talked about it before, if you want to look into this wonderful brush shampoo that I highly recommend you can go here and read about it.

 

Now for the ULTA haul, this is all cruelty free as well.

 

So from the left I have a staple, it is the Organix Argan Oil of Morocco shampoo, skinfix Hydrating Moisturizer, and Freemens Golden Grain Brightening Mask. On the top from top to bottom I have NYX retractable lip liner in Nude Pink MPL06, Palladio lip liner in Black Berry, and NYX brow pencil.

Now some of these products are not certified by the leaping bunny but they all say "not tested on animals" except the black berry lip liner.

Here are swatches of the lip liners and eyebrow pencil as well as the NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams I wanted to match with the lip liners.

 This lip cream is Cannes and is one of my favorites and most used.

 This lip cream is Copenhagen and is slightly more red than this lip liner but I think it will work.

 

If you've never used NYX Soft Matte Lip Creams and like long lasting matte lipstick then I would highly recommend these, they are very pigmented and have amazing wear *once dry. I would buy them in store instead of online though because I've noticed most websites have a color difference in their pictures.

Also I have a few resolutions.

1. One good deed a day.

2. Smile

3. Create more art outside of class.

And obviously don't be a little piggy as much.

Did you make any New Year's Resolutions?

That's pretty much it for now, did you buy some fun things with Christmas money, do you want any more in depth reviews of any of these products? Feel free to ask in the comments below. Also before I leave here is a piece I have been working on recently.

 

Sorry for the weird orange tint.

 

 You can follow my facebook to get updates on the new blogs.

You can also follow my pinterest page to see all the magnificent things I find from healthy recipes to art to wedding planning.