...Ready for a (LONG) Paint Chat today with me?
Today, I'm sharing some of my favorite painting products! I often do digital art and I LOVE it but I'm still analog to the core as well. Drawing of the
pencil,
paper, and
pen and ink variety has always been my be-all, end-all. Hey, I was a
Fine Arts major in college, after all! So, no matter how much I love doing
art on the
computer, "analog art" will always be an integral part of my life and my artwork. I've been doing it a long time and have tried many products on the market in the realms of my favorite media. There are some brands and products that haven't failed me yet and I have stuck by through the years. I also have a new favorite or two, down the page. Hey, if you've made it
this far and you're still interested, please be my guest and read on!
Since I enjoy both acrylic and watercolor painting, I have my favorite in each category. For watercolor, I love
Holbein tube paints the best. I have a little
Daler-Rowney mixed in there as well, which I have found to be solid in terms of overall quality. For acrylic painting, Iuse lighter-bodied paint for most of the detailed painting work. For this, I love the
Golden Fluid Acrylics, which offers an excellent variety of dense, saturated colors in a lighter consistency of paint. A close second is the
Liquitex Soft Body line, which is a little thicker than the Golden. I sometimes need to thin them a bit. However, with these richly pigmented colors and superior consistency, they are easily thinned without any pigment separation or over-wateryness of the paint. For grounds and covering larger areas, I use a heavy body paint, and
Liquitex brand Heavy Body paint is easily my "go to".
Above left: this
Liquitex Gloss Varnish is truly excellent. Used for the final glazing step for acrylic paintings, this is not a workable medium. I recently tried it for the first time, and I'm extremely happy with the results.
Above right: A Dick Blick store recently opened near me, so I had to try their line of
acrylic matte thin body paint. I usually think twice before buying a store brand simply because the quality is just not always there (quality of "house products" varies greatly, depending on the chain
and the product itself, I find), but it was so reasonably priced and the variety of hues so enticing, I simply had to give it a shot! Guess what? So far, so good!
Not shown: I've been painting on the
Ampersand Gessobord line of wood box panels, and these are the finest overall quality that I've tried of the boxed panels. I have recently tried the
Dick Blick version as well. It's not quite as Rolls Royce-ish as the Ampersand, but it is still very solid - like maybe it's the Volkswagen. It's nicely made, and on the flat, non-boxed variety of pan
Hurrah! Knit the City launched last night in a spray of yarn, cake and sparkles, and now is set to take over the world! Giant squid wrestler, Deadly Knitshade (whom I suspect might be my studio mate Lauren O'Farrell), launched her book chronicling the yarnbombing shenanigans that she and her knitting buddies get up to in London. Great photos, funny captions and right in the back, some simple creature knitting patterns.
Plarchie the giant squid (who even has his own blog) got his own window display from the gang at Gosh! London comics shop, who hosted the party. Here are Fleece Station studio friends Alex Milway and Katie Lee cowering in fear behind him. They were both eaten shortly after this photo was taken. ...And here's the lovely book! It's surrounded by woolly friends, including one of Alex's Mousehunter mice and our studio mate Gary Northfield's Derek the Sheep.
Lots of strange little creatures popped up everywhere during the evening! I took a sip of bubbly and the Moomin's Little My sprang up in front of Ian Culbard's At the Mountains of Madness.
Here's a little video I made of the launch speeches:
YouTube link
Here's Deadlyknitshade herself, just before everyone arrived, trying to coax the little critters to hang around for the party.
Here's Perri Lewis, sticking last-minute stars on to Wonder Woman's bum. (You can see Perri's blog post about the evening here.)
Gosh! London was such a fab venue for the party, our studio - The Fleece Station - has long been combining knitting and comics, so it felt just right. Here's owner Josh Palmano overseeing the pre-launch ruckus.
Gary's sister, Susannah Northfield (pouring champers here) made the most amazing Knit-the-City-themed cakes. Gary's dad helped her bring them over, a real family affair.
They looked fabulous displayed on Gosh's table made out of a sign for the Central Line. Look, there's Plarchie! And phonebox tea cosy cupcakes! There was even a map on the cake from the Knit the City endpapers, which were drawn by The Fleece Station's own Gary.
Whoo hoo! *Snoopy dance* (Deadly K does a lot of Snoopy dancing on Twitter.)
Super-glam Noëlle Davies-Brock, illustrator of Andy Stanton's
.jpeg?picon=3304)
By: Leslie Ann Clark,
on 8/4/2011
Blog:
Leslie Ann Clark's Skye Blue Blog
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
artist,
Illustrator,
children's books,
work,
kids,
creativity,
fun,
cartoons,
drawing,
ideas,
studio,
sketching,
inspired,
Work is Play....?,
new day,
my world,
Add a tag
Just a quick post today. Yesterday, I went to Goodwill in search of some bins to organize my art supplies with. I've been looking for a tool box type of thing for awhile. I found this one which I immediately collaged and painted. I have such a bad habit of buying something with the intention of giving it a makeover that never happens, so I jumped right in. (Anyone want some unpainted wood or papier mache doodads?)You'll have to trust me that it started out ugly and had the words 'baby meds' stenciled on it. Odd.
I love it! I now have all of my brushes organized by type. Flat in the first spot, round in the second.
I also managed to find a cool little wire basket to hold my
Claudine Helmuth and
Lumiere paints, a nice ceramic thing to hold some bits and pieces and another bigger wire bin in the back to hold my larger paint tubes. I've had my paints in a big box and I could never find the color I wanted. Please admire that my paint is now organized by color family. Aren't I amazing? I'm hoping this bit of dazzle will distract visitors from the mess all around it.
Admit it, you're jealous, right? :)
View Next 25 Posts
.jpeg?picon=1549)
.jpg?picon=925)
![](http
</p>
<div class="post-comments">
0 Comments on <em>Spring Fever</em> as of 1/1/1900
</div> <!-- end post-comments -->
<a name="commentsforpost1047925target" id="commentsforpost1047925target" style="text-decoration:none;"></a>
<div id="commentsforpost1047925" style="display: none;" ></div><a class = "leavecomment" title="Click Here to Add a Comment" href="/redirect.asp?kind=3&value=734&t=http://creativewhimsies.blogspot.com/2012/02/spring-fever.html" onclick="window.open(){kind=small}
Add a Comment
.png.jpg?picon=3640)
6 Comments on "The Blessing" and Things, last added: 10/26/2011
Beautiful work.
Deadlines are always times of huge stress!
Thanks for sharing all your fabulous illustrations. I'm starting to play around with dry pastels and I wanted to know if you recommend any specific fixative?
I use Daler Rowney, which I think is marginally less problematic than Windsor and Newton. They are the ones commonly available here. Both change the colours a fair bit though.
I wish you success at the fair .
Amazing!! very beautiful illustrations!
these are so lovely! your blog is so fascinating! :)
love hearing how professionals pull things together!
looks like it'll be a great book! ballet with dogs- SO cute!
Here's to their well-earned success at Frankfurt!
Thanks B x