Derwent Artbars

A year after I added Derwent's Artbars to my arsenal, I have finally made friends with them!

Farmyard door £4.50

I first tried the artbars at an SAA (Society for all Artists) convention in Manchester in 2012. There were very many people there, room was hot, and for a village girl it was all rather overwhelming. I didn't stay long, but whilst I was there I watched a few people having a short workshop, and I tried out the artbars at a stand. I thought they had a lot of potential so bought the not-quite-starter box of 24.


Well when I got home I thought they were awful things! I really struggled to get anything decent - see my previous post here.


But in true British spirit, I will not be defeated. So when we were heading off to Cornwall for our 2 week summer holiday, I took a last minute decision to bring the artbars along for the ride. I already had my watercolours and my oils packed - I'm not sure what forces were at work to make me add the artbars, but believe me I'm very glad I did.




What fantastic weather we had! We were in the middle of that very rare thing, a British heatwave (the last one that I recall was in 1995) and as I reported in my last post on the subject, artbars work at their very best when they are warm. So each morning, whilst the teens snoozed, I took my breakfast and my artbars outside to the picnic bench and the most amazing view of Godrevy lighthouse, and painted. And painted. And painted.

Godrevy Lighthouse in Cornwall, England, £4


All of these are highly collectable miniature paintings. They are small enough to hang on the wall of a dolls house or display in a photo frame. An album of your collection on your coffee table makes an extremely good talking point too.

Beach £3.50


They also look great on a mini-easel.


Sand Dunes £4.50


A few top tips:

  • Artbars work best when warm
  • After a few hours in direct (British summer) sunshine, artbars begin to melt. They are still good for using on the brush, but no good for picking up and applying directly. 
  • The grater will not work with warm artbars, but the dog shaped multi-tool does work well, and I find it to be easier to be more specific with adding texture using this instead of the grater anyway.
  • A waterbrush does not work well with artbars - mine doesn't deliver enough water and just got clogged up with thick not-quite-dissolved wax.
  • I start by picking up lots of colour directly from the artbar with a wet brush and applying it to my paper or applying directly from the bar to the paper and dissolving with a wet brush.
  • You do not need to use watercolour paper, a thick card will suffice. Once the first layer of wax is down and dissolved , additional layers will glide over the top.
  • Apply additional wax as required to build up your painting. You CAN put light colours over dark ones.
Seals at Godrevy in Cornwall £4

  • Add texture by either
    • wetting an area and grating wax over it
                                                                 
Wild Flowers £3.50

    • dissolving a small area of your artbar and flicking it at the paper

Cornish Moorland £3.50


    • building up layers of dry wax and scrape back using the dog-shaped tool


Poppies £4


I hope this was helpful to you. I'd love to hear about your experiences of using artbars - please leave your own findings on artbars in the comments below.

Oil Paint Colour Mixing Chart

I thought I must be sickening for something. My new paints arrived yesterday, and I hadn't even opened them! This is so not like me, I'm an "out of the shop and into the window" girl.

Today I thought I would do something useful and make an oil paint mixing chart to help me make colour choices when I do get going with the painting again. I really enjoy oil painting outside on location where firstly the fumes can escape easily, and secondly I have some inspiration in front of me - I don't know about you, but I'm hopeless at painting things straight out of my head!

I'm fairly new to oil painting and don't have a lot of colours. These are what I already had.


  •  Rowney (pre Daler) Georgian: 
    • French Ultramarine 
    • Sap Green 
    • Yellow Ochre
    • Lemon Yellow 
    • Lamp Black
    • Titanium White
    • Burnt Sienna  
    • Crimson 
  •  Daler Rowney Georgian: 
    • Burnt Umber 
  • W&N Artists:
    • Olive Green 

and my three new colours are

  • Daler Rowney Georgian:
    • a delicious Vermilion, 
    • Cadmium Yellow and 
    • Coeruleum

To make my mixing chart I took a pre-prepared gesso primed piece of A5 card. I then took my palette (a very high tech old ice cream carton lid) squirted out some colours, systematically mixed them with my palette knife, and put labelled blobs on a card. I didn't need to use too much paint, this is after all just a mixing guide. To each mixed colour I added white in a blob to the right. As well as creating a pastel shade, this will help me to distinguish between all the different darks that I made.




And what do you know, I was inspired to carry on and paint this sunset scene. Normality is restored!

Sunset ACEO using Vermillion, Cad Yellow and Burnt Umber


One thing I have noticed is that I don't have a decent purple. I thought I would be able to mix one from my new red and my new blue, but if I had applied colour theory correctly I would have realised that Vermilion (a yellow leaning red) and Coeruleum (a yellow leaning blue) would mix into a dark browny/purple - we all know that red + blue + yellow = brown don't we??

Can anyone recommend a good all purpose purple oil colour?