The white is more opaque and powerful than regular watercolour white and I love how it interacts with the skin tone. So too is the black and when mixed with the red it makes some lovely browns.
Bonus points if you know what movie this is from. I wasn't brave enough to do his eyebrows big enough.
In many ways, I adore how this turned out. The granulation. The way the white pushes back his hat and cloak while the transparent watercolours in the staff make it almost glow.
What I didn't know, and is hard to see in this photo, is the paper had gone off. The sizing (the layer that protects the paper from the water) had decayed due to poor storage prior to the book shipping to me. You can see it most near the top of the staff where there's a white patch that didn't take the background colour and some places where it absorbed too much.
I ended up contacting the manufacturer and got a refund for the books (yes, I bought two). I'm still going to use these, but alas, not for the nice record keeping I was hoping for. This is going to be another practice journal.
In Ancient Greece, it was called the Apelles Palette, many Renaissance painters used a variation on it, only with the newly discovered vermillion. Anyway, there are about 36 hundred names for these four colours. But I can spell Zorn. So Zorn it is.
For this, I'm experimenting with white in watercolours and a couple of different blacks. Granulating mars black for the background and interesting how white can bring forward or push back certain subjects.
It's also around this time, I'm borrowing a lot of books from the library on the history of watercolour and discover that it's not until about 1960 that white became forbidden in watercolours.
I think teachers might have had trouble explaining/understanding that white and black aren't good at values - they don't lighten or darken colours well. In watercolour this is done with saturation (the amount of paint) more than anything. Since they couldn't explain/understand this, they forbid white (and black) in the classroom. And people took this to mean that all white and black are forbidden in watercolours.
I think that's a shame as these two can do amazing effects. Just look at some of the old masters from Turner, Constable, Van Gogh, Emily Car... none of them were afraid of white or "body colour" in their watercolours. Why are we?
And upgrading my paint box.
There are some colours I use a lot more like Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre, so they get more pans. I also left a special spot for Potters Pink as I would love to try that one day.
(these blog entries are coming in a bit out of order, but I hope to catch up to the current day in a few months)
-web-ready.jpg "and there's a chicken")
Painting that it's a doll is hard, so I just focused on the idea.
But also, something was missing, so I added some gold ink to his robe and stars
The second thing that must happen is a Wizzard! (comment if you know why it has two Z's)
Here our Wizzard is having a walk in the potato patch. He loves potatoes.
Only, it goes all wrong somehow.
Details on how Nicole made this mighty wizzard here.
this is me just showing off another needle felted chicken by fairy grove creations
And my other favourite thing - coffee!
(make note of how small that coffee plant is in the coffee bag, it comes back later)
To understand the next painting, two things must happen.
First, chickens!
This is needle felted henny penny! You can get your own epic chicken here.
It's amplifies what I love about watercolours - the paints participate in the creation. They flow and granulate adding texture and surprise.
A review from a new painter of HannahLouMyers handmade watercolours and a variation on the review I wrote here.
The magic of using good quality materials is something any craftsperson can relate to. Like carving a beautifully grown apple branch into a spoon or knitting with lovingly handspun yarn. Spaghetti sauce from homegrown tomatoes. The materials add a flavour to the final project that is more than knowing where our ingredients come from, it adds a feeling of life to the final creation.
So when I started learning how to paint this summer, I looked around for handmulled paints that would give this feeling to my paintings. Commercial paints are lovely, but they feel like the pigment is flat on the paper and it takes a lot from the artist to add that extra dimension to the painting. Thus the quest for handmulled paints began.
I suspect if I had spent as many hours painting as I did seeking out the perfect handmade paints, I would be a master painter by now. But I finally settled on HannahLouMyers' handmade paints on etsy and I am over-the-moon happy with these paints. (I just hope I'm worthy of them).
They look like handmade chocolates, but the inside is even better. I bought the set of 6 handmade watercolour half pans in a tin.
Okay, I want to stop here and say that these paints smell amazing. Like all the good memories of winter holidays in one tiny tin.
The ingredients include clove oil for preservation and honey to help the paint flow smoothly. Local honey! This is another reason why I choose this maker as the shop is just the next city over and they source many of their ingredients locally.
I hear you saying "alright already, but how does it paint?"
Before I decided what colours to get, I bought some dot cards. These are small mounds of watercolours on a bit of paper we can use for swatching. HannahLouMyers has generous size dots that I was not only able to see what the colour looks like, but to swatch and do some colour mixing to see which combination gave me the most versatile and useful palette.
I am really glad I got some dot cards first because I had no idea that paints could be so lively. It's not just the colour, but each paint has a personality it adds to the painting. Some of these paints are so textured you can feel it on the page and it makes the most marvellous effect. The thing is, I've only been painting for two months and I worried that my skill wasn't up for those paints... yet. So I chose some of the calmer paints.
The Colour Theory or Primary set has great mixing power so they were an obvious place to start. The more muted yellow and red (forsythia and maple) are very much like my most used colours of yellow ochre and burnt sienna. But different enough that I'm going to have fun learning what these paints can do. As for choosing brine... well, that was an oddball for me. Of all the colours I swatched, that was the one that sang to me most of all. I don't know why or how to use this colour but I just knew it would improve my painting if I tried it.
So, the next step is to swatch out a little cheat sheet for my tin until I can get to know the colours better.
I love this little set and the only big adjustment I've made is to add magnets to the bottom of the pans so they don't rattle around.
And a final comparison between commercially made paints and the hand mulled watercolours.
The commercial paints have the advantage of being consistent and predictable. But when I see them next to the handmade watercolours, the handmade paints look more lively and the commercial ones flat.
I'm very excited to try out these new paints, but I'm also worried that now I have them, I will be too afraid to use them because I'm not yet good enough. I need to find something too paint soon so I can get over the fear. There's no point having beautiful paints and not using them.
additional to the original review:
I love these paints and I especially like that they include pigment information. The pans are overflowing with paint and considering these are cheaper than commercial paints, I am definitely getting my money's worth.
What I didn't mention is how long shipping takes. I've had things arrive the same day from that city, but it usually takes 2 to 3 business days to get here. I'm very lucky if I get my order in under 3 weeks.
The paints are less consistent than commercial versions, but I kind of like that as these paints participate in the art instead of just sitting where I put them.
It didn't go well.
From here on, it's pretty much a mix of mostly Cotman paints being slowly replaced or supplemented with Van Gogh (my favourite student grade), Winsor and Newton, Rembrandt, and Holbein when I can afford or find it. Unless I specify otherwise.
It's tricky because he's a black chicken but the black isn't black, it glows lots of colours.
the idea is the background would be part of the shimmer of the feathers.
you can see him in his full glory helping in the garden
Cotman watercolour but still, I have a lot to learn.
For years, I avoided weaving with linen, and when I finally tried it, yep. It's hard. So hard that I sent my loom to a friend's house to finish off the weaving, and even she had trouble.
I've gotten to know linen a bit since then, and here is basically the video I wish I had watched when I was a new weaver. How to make weaving with linen easy.
Distaffs (or distaves) are used for all sorts of different fibres. It's basically a third hand that holds the fibre while our other hands are busy spinning it into yarn.
Distaff Day is on the 7th of January and is the most important holiday in the spinner's calendar. Well, I say holiday, but it's actually the back-to-work day but we do it with great fun.
This year, I dressed distaves in flax fibre for spinning linen yarn.
Here's a free PDF guide on dressing a distaff with linen fibre.
Last year I did the same with wool
Now, how do I up my game for next year? Anything about distaves you wanted to know?
Chaotically
So this is a list I made for myself. This includes the videos I am actively working on and if they have any deadlines (and yes, dyslexia is a thing - don't even bother correcting, I promise it will do more harm than good).
To get on this list, the video needs to be in the filming, editing, writing, crafting, or gathering materials stage. The list fails to include some of the long-term projects where I'm gathering footage over several years (I started a flax video in 2019 for example), videos still in the planning stages, or videos that got stalled in the editing due to not having the right story to be worth making... yet. There are also a few secret projects that won't make it into this either.
What unexpected yarn has fallen into your life? Do you have a go-to project you love to make with found yarn or do you wait to see what the yarn says it wants to be?
About a year ago, I stumbled on some free yarn, leftovers from the now closed local mill. Talking to people who used to work there, this was part of calibrating the spinning machine, so it contains a lot of different fibres from a variety of farms. Most of them are less than a day's journey away.
So I made a thing. And I made a video about the thing. And the yarn. And deep thoughts about the yarn, fibreshed, and my personal textile history.
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