Winsor and Newton Desert Collection Review

As soon as I heard that I had won the new Winsor and Newton Limited Edition Desert Collection I excitedly told all my facebook followers that I had won the new Dessert Collection. I was way too excited to check my spelling (not my best subject, anyone who is a naturally good speller has my admiration). A dear friend pointed out my boo-boo and I cheerfully rechristened them my pudding paints, with which I shall paint puddings.




Space is a premium in my house so I needed to find a simple way to store my new tube paints alongside my existing half pan ones. Simple! I found some empty half pans in my local art shop, and my new paints now sit down the middle of my lightweight sketching box. It took a few days for them to set and become portable (and pack-away-able), and it was a bit of a squeeze, but they're in now and ready to go
.




So far, so good - but these paints are unfamiliar to me. How do I tell which is which?

This bit was easy. I stuck a little label onto each half pan before I filled them up so that if they fall out, I can easily identify them. This is important because the yellows in particular are very similar to yellow ochre and raw sienna that I already have in my paint box.

And then I made a little label for each paint along with a sample, and stuck them together with selotape. I had already made an ID chart for the existing paints in my box using the paint wrappers, so I cut it down the middle and stuck my new home made labels in place.



Now to try them out :)


The very first thing I painted with my new pudding paints was naturally, a pudding...

For my first pudding, a jammy biscuity slice, I used the two opaque yellows Gold Brown and Yellow Titanate, with a touch of the opaque Dark Brown. I'm not a big fan of mixing in the palette so these were applied wet in wet. The jam (Indian Red Deep and a touch of Pthalo Sapphire in places) was added when the cake was dry. I found the top quite tricky - the plan was to underpaint with Indian Red Deep and when that was dry add in Dark Brown to the whole top. Dark Brown is a VERY opaque paint and I was quite distressed to begin with as it all seemed to be going wrong - too thick, too much! However, it is extremely liftable, and whilst is it a staining colour, the underpainted red still came through. I'm quite pleased with this one.




Next, a red berry crumble. The first mistake I made with this pudding was in the initial (very sketchy) drawing. I really should have given it some perspective - a side on view is not the easiest to portray. Anyway, "I've started so I'll finish".  The berries were painted with Indian Red Deep and Transparent Orange - an absolutely lush combination. Both are transparent and very juicy. With the addition of some Pthalo Sapphire (also transparent) I achieved a delicious red berry bottom to my crumble. The topping used all three opaques - Gold Brown, Dark Brown
and Yellow Titanate.



Whilst I was painting the first crumble I was not happy with the yellows. I think W&N made a mistake by making all of the yellows opaque - I would much prefer to have had one opaque and one transparent. So I wondered what would happen if I repainted the crumble using raw sienna and burnt umber instead, as these are both transparent. Surprisingly, I prefer the one above that used the Yellow Titanate and Gold Brown.





For my third pudding, I thought I'd do a steamed red berry pud. Colour combinations were the same as the other puddings. This one makes me laugh - the Transparent Orange glows so much that it looks like the inside of a volcano!




Finally, I couldn't think of a blue pudding, so instead I painted a gorgeous little Goldfinch. The only addition to the pudding paints here was a little Winsor Yellow along the Goldfinch's back. This painting really shows off the beautiful Pthalo Sapphire.





In Conclusion

If you're thinking of buying these paints but are on a limited budget I'd say go for Transparent Orange, Indian Red Deep and Pthalo Sapphire first, in that order.

Next I would buy the Dark Brown, it's a warmer shade than you can achieve by mixing Burnt Umber and French Ultra Marine.

Finally, the yellows are very similar to Raw Sienna and Yellow Ochre, but there are subtle differences that will come in useful. If money is no object, buy them all before they sell out!



Have you used these paints? What do you think of them?

When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils

I've had a slight obsession lately. And no, I don't mean painting, that's nothing short of an addiction...

I can't seem to stop painting daffodils, here are just a few of them:










Do you have a subject you keep coming back to?



How to get your paintings printed onto greetings cards

What a pa-lava!

I've had a series of my original artwork professionally printed onto greetings cards and I'm so pleased with how they have turned out I thought I would share the process with you.


The Kicking Donkey, Ormskirk
The Buck I'th Vine, Ormskirk




















Why a pa-lava? Well, it took three months of to-ing and fro-ing to the printer's to get there!

Here is the process I went through. If you follow these steps you should be able to avoid some of the pitfalls and have a successful outcome!


The Bandstand, Ormskirk
Clieves Hills, Aughton, Ormskirk


  • Start well in advance of when you want your cards to be ready. For me, the process took 3 months - I consider this to be time well invested because when I need a rerun it can be done at the push of a button.
  • Take good quality photos in good light. I take mine outdoors on a bright day, out of direct sunlight and not behind glass. I have a 20MP digital compact bridge camera. Make sure that the lense is clean and use a tripod to eliminate camera shake. Don't touch up the photo - let the printers do that. They have the skills required to know what changes need to be made to suit their printing equipment.
  • Choose your printers carefully. Unless you have a LOT of money to spare, you will be looking at digital printing rather than lithographical printing. This isn't a bad thing, just make sure your printer has a top quality printer to work with. Previously I made the mistake of going to a small scale printers who used a standard office printer - needless to say the quality was not good, and that print run ended up in the recycling bin. You will be viewing a lot of proofs, so locality may be important to you - it certainly was to me.
  • View proof printed samples of every image to make sure that they looked like the originals. This is VERY important - my previous card run (at afore mentioned small scale printers) was done without proofs and was a complete disaster - as I said, the cards ended up in the recycling bin.
  • Choose the card stock (finish, thickness, texture etc) and view more proofs. My cards are printed on white 350gsm card with a satin finish.
  • Source good quality envelopes. The ones that my printer had on offer were very basic - I chose to search for some myself and found some good ones in The Range (UK).
  • Source cellophane bags of the exact size to fit the card with the envelope tucked inside. Mine came from The Works (UK).
  • View proofs of the cards made up to the size I wanted, and to check the wording and the positioning of my logo on the back was correct.
  • Once printed, check every card for quality (quality of cut, finger prints, any bends, ink marks, accurate fold etc), match with an envelope and put them into cellophane bags.
  • Seal the cellophane bags - this bit took a surprising amount of time - persuading the extremely static peel-off strips that they wanted to go in the bin and not stay stuck to me was a challenge!

Ormskirk Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul
St Michael's Church, Aughton



Now that they are all packaged up I am looking for local shops to stock them. I have 2 Ormskirk Cafe's signed up: "The Edge" near the bus station and "Brew and Bake" near the library. I am also in discussions with a couple of independent card shops.




And finally I sell them through the greetings card section of my online shop

I hope this article was of use to you! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments box below.

Wedding and Christening Gift Idea

Are you attending a wedding soon? Stuck for a gift? 

Here's a really unique and thoughtful gift idea that will make a wonderful keepsake...a custom watercolour painting of a local landmark of your choice, including artistic impressions of yourself, your pets and/or your loved ones!



Simply email me photographs of your special place and your loved ones, and I will create a beautiful watercolour and pen portrait for your to treasure.

The better your photo, the better the result will be, but please don't worry if your photo is not great - simply email it to me prior to purchase along with a description and I will see if I will be able to work with it.



Commissions will be completed within a 2 week timeframe from payment and receipt of a suitable photograph, so if this is a gift please allow ample time for creation and postage!


Where and how to store oil paintings while they dry?

I love painting in oils but they do take a long time to dry - up to 6 months (and sometimes longer) before they can be varnished.

Since I don't have a dedicated studio I need to store my paintings somewhere in my house.

I have been keeping them on the mantle piece, and they do look fabulous there, but now I have too many so need another solution. This is what I came up with...



All I needed was a piece of wood from the garage, a pack of long nails, and a hammer - and now I can store 28 more paintings!

My paintings are very small, just 2.5 x 3.5 inches. The nails I used are 75mm long with an oval top, and they are spaced at 1 inch intervals.

If you need to store larger paintings than this you could use wooden dowling instead of nails, and simply drill holes to fit the dowling.

Floral Collection at Ormskirk's Brew and Bake

I adore flowers; the colours and heady scents are simply divine.

So for my latest collection I've been busy painting fuchsias, tulips, and my spring favourites - daffodils. 

My floral collection is now on display at Brew and Bake in the lovely little market town of Ormskirk in West Lancashire. Brew and Bake is a relatively new tea shop selling teas, coffees, homemade cakes, soups and sandwiches, all with a local twist.

You can read all about Brew and Bake on the Love Ormskirk website and you can also find them on facebook.

The Floral Collection























On display at Brew and Bake







Smaller paintings from the Floral Collection are available in my Folksy Shop:

SOLD

http://folksy.com/items/5328481-Daffodil-Painting-ACEO-



Derwent Inktense on Fabric

This weekend I tried painting with Derwent Inktense on fabric.

I started by cutting out an ACEO sized piece of denim from an old pair of jeans. ACEOs measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches, and you can read more about these fascinating collectible paintings here.

According to Derwent, intense pencils and blocks are washable at 30 degrees celcius proving they have been completely dissolved, so it is important to make sure that the fabric is thoroughly damp before using the pencils. 

So to begin with I used a flat brush and clean water to dampen the whole piece of denim to the point where it was most definitely damp, but not soaking wet.

Inktense pencils work really really well on the damp denim - much better than I have ever found them to work on paper. The colours were very bright.

With the inktense blocks I picked up paint from the block with a wet brush, and these also worked well but were not as vibrant and did not spread very far.


Next stage was to let the painting dry - seemed to take an inordinate amount of time! I'd forgotten quite how long it takes denim to dry, but I was patient and let it dry naturally. You can see that the colours dried into much more muted tones.




Once dry I added some definition using the inktense blocks, picking paint up from the block with a wet brush and applying it to the now dry denim. This worked well as the colour did not spread as much on dry fabric, although it did still spread a little.




Next day the denim had completely dried, and again the whole painting was much more muted.




Now for the scary part - time for my little fishy to go for a swim!

According to Derwent, inktense is fully washable at 30 degrees celcius. I prepared a nice warm pond for him with washing powder (that took ages to dissolve at that temperature)...


And in he goes...


After 5 minutes of swishing, prodding, and a gentle rub, you can see that a little of the yellow has run, but otherwise the washing water is pretty much the same colour as before.



Here is is straight out of the bath, looking good I think! I made the mistake of squeezing him dry, which left him full of crinkles, so I thoroughly wet him again and left him to drip dry.




24 hours later he was quite dry and, disappointingly, quite faded.



I very much enjoyed this exercise, but have to conclude that inktense painting on denim is not durable enough to be wash-and-wearable.


I will be re-painting this fish with my inktense blocks, but this time I won't wash it!


Do please share your thoughts on (and experience with) inktense on fabric in the comments below, I'd love to know what you think.