Test driving the Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils

One of my first art projects when I started getting back in to things was to draw portraits of our kids as an anniversary gift for my wife. I bought a bunch of Faber-Castell Aquarelle watercolor pencils for this and they worked fairly well. Watercolor pencils are like colored pencils except that instead of colored graphite, you get actual watercolor paint in the pencil. You draw like you would normally and by adding a wash of water you get a beautiful watercolor effect.

I love working in watercolor and this is an easy way to do it. The pencils that I had did have some frustrating qualities. They were a bit too hard and would leave gouges in my paper. They also didn't dissolve completely when you ran your wet brush over the pencil marks. While browsing through the art supply stores online I came across the high-end version of the pencils I had.

I had mentioned to Connie that I was looking at these Albrecht Durer pencils and soon she said, "Surprise! They're on their way." I was soon to be the proud owner of a set of twelve off of eBay.

When I got them I knew the first thing to do was to make up a color chart as it's impossible (or at least really hard for me) to remember what color pencil does what exact color.


From here I started to draw. Since this was the Nature set of pencils I thought an autumn leaf pile was a good place to start. Here's the work in progress.


And I'll post the finished version soon.

Test driving Golden's OPEN Acrylics

For the past few paintings I've been using a new type of oil paints that clean up with water. This leaves out all the bad smells and chemicals while still leaving the slow drying times and ability to make nice blends that is the hallmark of oil painting. My paintings were going fairly well, but I noticed that the paint dries much more slowly than I was expecting. I'd come back to a painting weeks later to find spots still wet. (I now know that other oil painters expect this and work on multiple paintings at the same time to interleave the drying time!)

Well, I had come across a new art supply store (new for me at least) Lynn's on Odana Road. While browsing through there, I came across a large display for Golden brand acrylic paint. Golden's paints are some of the best acrylics out there and I was interested in this new subsection called "OPEN" paint. After grabbing a brochure or two and a lot of quick digging on the web, I found a paint that I wanted to try.

Normal acrylics dry very quickly. Like in 5 minutes. Not enough time for me to get what I want done especially with all the interruptions that happen in our busy house. Well, the "OPEN" in the name means that these paints will still be workable for a longer period of time, or more 'open' for use.

I went back to Lynn's and bought the starter set of 6 tubes of paint and brought them home to try. I dabbled with these paints for over an hour with stops to put kids to bed, get Mom her juice and let the dog out and back in again. The paint still was workable on the palette and I could still make my blends on the leaves and cube. This is perfect for the situation I'm in. I'm a very happy camper now and I'll set up the next painting very soon. My only issue now is I want more tubes!



Painted with Golden OPEN Acrylics, Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green, Ultramarine Blue, Hansa Yellow Opaque, Burnt Sienna and Titanium White on canvas paper.