News — supplies

How did a beat up old, nonstick cookie sheet become a permanent fixture in my art room? "Billowing Clouds" was created with an old, battered baking sheet and experimentation with a non-traditional painting process: monotype. Monotype is actually a printing process, where a single print is taken from ink or paint spread on a flat surface. For this one, I squeezed pure indigo (always a favorite of mine), gold ochre, and maroon perylene pigments onto an old nonstick baking sheet--also a bit of a break from tradition since monotype is usually done on glass or an etching plate! Next I...

I always have good intentions to use my small collection of sketchbooks, however I think they're an aspirational purchase for me--I want to be the kind of person who will carry a little kit of supplies wherever they go and dash out a quickie painting whenever inspiration strikes. Unfortunately, I've never been much of a doodler or sketcher. For a while I didn't really see the point of having a sketchbook. I'm not a "sketcher," after all. I finally decided to get my first sketchbook in order to keep track of notes--things like color combos I particularly liked, or what...

When you're just starting out with watercolor, it can be overwhelming to contemplate the range of supplies and their cost. Pretty much anywhere I looked gave recommendations, but always had caveats that every artist is different, you'll have to just try it yourself to see. Who the heck has time and money to spend on trying every supply under the sun when you don't even know if you'll enjoy watercolor?! It can be very tempting to buy some cheap supplies to dip your toes in the water. In fact, I tried just that, and can confirm that it doesn't work....

Orange & blue is one of my favorite color combos to use in my abstract work. Color theory tells us that complementary colors mix to make neutrals, and I've had the best results with blue and orange. Red and green (or more accurately, in my experiments, viridian and a cool red) often work as well, but I've had zero luck finding a pleasing combination of purple and yellow. And I've tried! A LOT. Instead, purple and yellow just make mud, almost without fail, and the worst part is it's not even interesting mud. It's just ugly brown. Give me a lovely granulating...

Have you heard of Yupo paper? It's a tree-free, synthetic paper from Legion. Like many watercolor supplies, it's not particularly cheap, so I wanted to just dip my toes barely into the water with a tiny, 5x7 in. 10 sheet pad. I've seen it around on Instagram, but I ignored the lesson on it in the Watercolor Mastery class I took since I didn't have the supply at the time. (Honestly, I am also such a stereotype of a man--I hate to ask for directions or read instructions!) It took me a few days to work up to trying it...