Product Review; Winsor & Newton Heavy Weight Sketch book

Welcome Back

In today’s post I will be reviewing;

Winsor & Newton, Heavy weight wire O Sketch book

Product Details

• Manufacturer/Brand; Winsor and Newton
• Item number; 6679247
• RRP at time of writing: £5

Reason For Buying

Needed a hard backed sketchbook, I wanted a wire binding as I find it hard to hold open the sewn bound books when on location. especially if it is a windy day!

Pros/Cons

Pros

• A5; 14.8 cm x 21.0 cm.
• 50 sheets
• 170 gsm/ 80 lb weight paper
• Heavy weight paper; good for pencil, ink, pen & ink and light washes of watercolour
• Acid free
• Great size, portable without being too bulky or heavy
• Wire bound means you can fold extra pages out-of-the-way
• Super smooth paper
• Lovely for sketching, drawing and light washes of watercolour.

Cons

Not got any, this is my favorite sketchbook for location sketching.

Build Quality

Superb! Wipe clean cover, sturdy, robust and not too heavy. Have had mine years and it’s still in great condition.

Value for Money

Superb

Would I buy it Again?

Yes! Highly recommended for sketching.

Summing up

I love everything about this sketchbook. I can fold it back on itself so only have the page I’m working on, to hold onto. The hard covers are especially good  for field trips if you don’t want to carry a board with you. This sketchbook has a superb surface to create onto. Pencil and ink glide over the surface. You can watercolour onto it without much page warping, if you don’t put much water on. Perfect too for watercolour pencils.

Links

• Winsor & Newton Manufacturers website. This links to UK site, but there are links off to other countries sites from here too.
• A5 Hard Back Sketch Book (Wire-O) – 6679234 Mine says 6679247 on it, but its YEARS old, so their numbers may have changed.
• Wire bound sketch book in various sizes including A5

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Product Review; Winsor & Newton Cotman Travel Bag

Welcome Back

In today’s post I will be reviewing;

Winsor & Newton Cotman Travel Bag

 

 

 

Product Details

• Manufacturer/Brand; Winsor & Newton/ Cotman
• Item number
• RRP at time of writing: £45

Reason For Buying

For a long time I have been after some way of keeping all essential sketching equipment to hand and ready, just in case inspiration/motivation and opportunity collide and I get to go sketching. This gave me essential items in a convenient case that stops me carrying everything in my studio with me, on a sketching trip!

Content of Winsor & Newton Cotman Travel Bag

Pros/Cons

Contains

• Cotman Compact set; 14 half pans of student quality paint. This has lots of room for colour mixing and you can replace the pan paints as required.
• Small water bottle
• Watercolour pad of paper 8 x 5″
• Folding water pot
• Technique booklet
• Two Cotman synthetic brushes, round size 2 and size 6
• Putty eraser

Pros

• First of all, it comes with the content listed above so if you are just starting out with watercolour its perfect!
• The bag is sturdy, light and comes with handle on the top and the option of a wrap round your waist strap, for hands free.
• Room to add more brushes/pencils/pens from your own collections
• Separate pockets for things, to stop content rattling around
• Compact and ideal for travel

Cons

• Haven’t got any!

Build Quality

Excellent. Its made of wipe clean nylon, there is a brush/pen holder that attaches withVelcro inside, which you can remove, should you want to. All pockets have worn well. I’ve had mine years and it’s still in excellent condition.

Value for Money

Excellent. Has lasted well and a great place to start if you are new to watercolour.

Would I buy it Again?

Yes. If mine were to fall apart, I would definitely buy another one.

Summing up

Would make a great present, ideal for travel, ideal as introduction to watercolours and as a first set. Lots of pockets for adding your own favorite items. If you don’t have a dedicated space to paint, this keeps essential items to hand.

Highly recommend for all abilities. Paints are removable, so you can replace colours as required or update the paint to the artists quality versions as you progress.

A great buy, for all artists, or budding of all ages and abilities.

Links

• Winsor & Newton Manufacturers website. This links to UK site, but there are links off to other countries sites from here too.
• Winsor & Newton Cotman Travel Bag The manufacturer’s product details
• Cowling & Wilcox have these bags at excellent prices
• Jackson’s Art Supplies have the Cotman Travel Bag

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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How to make a travelling kit for sketching & painting

Welcome Back

If all my talk of painting has inspired you to want to try painting, not just at home but on day trips and more, here are some essentials for how to put your own travelling sketching and painting kit together;

Travelling Sketching kit

You Will Need

• Surface to create onto
• Pencil, sharpener, eraser
• Pens
• Watercolours
• Brushes
• Something to sit on
• Something to carry it in
• Compact camera

Method

precisely what you put in your kit will depend upon your style of work. My kit below works for sketching, wather colour and pen and wash. Feel free to modify the contents to your own artistic style. This is a core kit to get you started.

• Surface to work on; I use a ring bound sketch book. This means I can fold back the pages I’m not using and the hard covers mean I don’t need a board.
• Pencil; I use a couple of Staedtler Mars 780 lead holders. One with B and the other a 2B grade of lead. The advantage of these is that there is a sharpener incorporated within the barrel, so one less piece of kit to carry.
• Eraser; I have a small tin with a putty eraser in it. This creates no mess and does less damage to the paper surface than other kinds of erasers. Mine is a Faber Castel one.
• Pens; Fine liners in 0.1, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7. I use a set in black and also a set in sepia depending on the style of subject/time of year. This range of nib sizes allows for fine detail up to quite dark shading. I do love the Faber Castel ones, but other brands are available
• Watercolours: The colour pallet you use will depend upon your choice of subject and time of year, If you can keep to a minimal pallet of 12-14 colours I highly recommend the Winsor and Newton Field Box. It has fold out pallets, the end cap turns into a water holder and there is a mini water bottle in there too. It also has its own (very small) brush. Perfect size to pop in your pocket and not too heavy. I love to use mine with water brushes for quick sketches, but the water pot on the end means you don’t have to carry excess kit.
• Brushes; Depends on your style, but for minimal fuss and quick sketches I’ve found the water brushes by Pentel to be superb, they hold water within the barrel, so no need to carry extra water pot. These come in small, medium and large brush points. Kuretake also make a similar product and include a flat within their range.  Have just invested in a set of retractable sable brushes, that I will review at a later point. These are handy if you like a traditional brush but don’t want it to get damaged. I work small, A5 ish and found the most useful sizes of brush to be No; 2,4,6 and a flat. This gives me everything from fine detail to a wash brush
  

  Pentel Water Brush set; Fine, medium and large brushes

• Something to sit on; If you are going out especially to paint, let’s get comfy and take a chair. Those folding directors chairs are great, as they have pockets on one side to put stuff in and on the other a fold up table, ideal for putting your paints on If you are going out for a day trip and want the option of painting, folding foam mats available from camping shops are ideal. The mats fold up small and weigh almost nothing but are great for keeping you off the damp grass or cold concrete of a stone wall etc.
• Camera; It’s really useful to take a small compact camera with you on sketching trips. If the light or weather change its handy to have taken a photo to refer back to if you have to cut your trip short.

Options/Added Extras

You will now need something to put all this kit into. First gather your supplies, so you know how much you want to take with you then select what you will store it in.

• DIY stores are a great place to find empty tool boxes, these are divided and can be really useful kit holders, being plastic they are also less likely to damage if stood on damp grass for longer trips.
• Sturdy Bag; something reasonably weather proof is a good idea, it will keep the contents more protected if the weather turn on you.

Top tips are to keep it simple, and comfortable. If something is too bulky, heavy or uncomfortable to use or carry you won’t want to use it. At a pinch..if pushed.. I could get away with a pencil, eraser,  a 0.1 pen (either colour) W&N Field box, sketch book and the three water brushes. They are all in there, so if I want the option of sketching I can just pick those and drop them in my pocket.

Links

A few ready-made options

• Winsor and Newton Field Box
• Winsor and Newton Travelling Sketching kit. (To be reviewed next week, I’ll add a link here after that).
• Here’s my earlier post which details the items I’ve put into my kit 

The biggest advantage of putting together a travel kit, even if you don’t intend to travel with it! Is that it makes it so much quicker and easier to locate your favorite and essential items when you want to sketch. Don’t loose precious sketching time rummaging round the house for your sketching pens or brushes. Gather your favorite items together in a small box, you notice I say small box! If its going to leave the house with it, it doesn’t want to be the size of a car!!! Remember you’ll be carrying it to your chosen painting spot!

Best wishes and thanks for reading see you soon

Billie

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Product Review; Winsor & Newton Field Box

Welcome Back

In today’s post I will be reviewing; Winsor & Newton Field Box.

Winsor & Newton Field Box (closed)

Product Details

• Manufacturer/Brand; Winsor & Newton (mine is Cotman but it is also available with their artist quality paint too)
• Item number; 0390639
• RRP at time of writing: £37
  

  Winsor & Newton Field Box (in use)

Reason For Buying

I’ve had this little gem for about 15 years now, (the new one’s are blue boxes) so this review is a little late but it is only now I have the technology to share my views about this with more people. I wanted to paint anywhere, this is a self-contained kit that allows you to just add a sketchbook and a pencil and off you go. Due to a limited budget mine is the Cotman version (the student quality paints) the same set is available with artist quality paints at a higher price.

Pros/Cons

Pros

• The newer ones have blue boxes, very apt as they really are like little *TARDIS! The small size accommodates 12-14 half pan paints.
• Self storing brush, it takes apart and bristles are protected within the barrel of the brush.
• Has its own water bottle, complete with mixing area.
• The end of the box pulls off to create your water pot
• In addition to the smooth face of the water bottle, you have two, fold out mixing pallets.
• Compact and not too heavy to just slip in your pocket.
• Robust and durable
• Includes 12 half pan paints, but you can squeeze in a couple more at the top end
• Lift up centre section, allowing you to remove/replace pans as required.

Cons

On my box, I find pulling the water pot off the end of the closed box difficult, but I do have limited dexterity and it has meant that the box has never fallen open by mistake in transit.

Build Quality

Superb, I’ve had mine nearly 15 years and it’s still good as new. It’s not too heavy but still remains robust and sturdy.

Value for Money

Fantastic! As a newbie go for the Cotman (student paint) version for affordability, you can buy individual half pan paints to change the colours to your own prefered pallet should you wish to and to replace colours as you use them up. Over time, as you progress to the artist quality paint, simply change the paint pans  to those as you go.

Would I buy it Again?

Yes! The latest ones are blue and very smart It’s amazing how much kit this little box holds.

Summing up

I have a tendency to carry far too much kit. I have collected lots of variations of paint boxes over the years but come back to this one for travel, every time. I now add a water brush, sketch book and pencil to my pocket and it takes up minimal space in your coat or bag. Great to keep with you in case inspiration strikes-even when you weren’t out intending to sketch. It is fairly priced and very reliable. A must have for your travel kit!

Links

• Winsor & Newton Manufacturers website. This links to UK site, but there are links off to other countries sites from here too.
• Cotman Field Box
• Artists Field Box As above but with the artist quality paint, instead of the Cotman student quality ones.

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

PS: *TARDIS is a Doctor Who reference. His Time and relative Dimensions in Space or TARDIS as its know, has always been renowned for being bigger on the inside than the outside See Doctor Who Ok so I’m a closet nerd/anorack…bovered! hehehe

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Tutorial; My Sketching kit

Welcome Back

In today’s post I’ll be showing you round my sketching kit.

My sketching kit, pt 1

 

Winsor & Newton Travel bag, folding mat to sit on and Winsor & Newton sketch book; contains 170 gsm paper. Below is the content of my travel kit.

Travelling Sketching kit

Contents

I should add that I have modified the contents of the original items that come with the W&N Travel Bag. I will be reviewing the original and its contents in a later post.

1. Single sheets of watercolour paper
2. Winsor & Newton Field Box, so far this contains the Cotman (student range of paints) 
3. Handmade sketchbook containing; cartridge paper and also watercolour paper
4. Winsor and Newton Travel Bag. I have modified it from its original contents
5. Edding 1800 Profi Pen; Sepia; 0.1,0.3, 0.5, 0.7
6. Midas Touch; Flat 50687275. Folding brush with flat end for large washes
7. Folding water pot (came with the travel kit)
8. Set of three Pentel Water Brushes; Fine, Medium and Large.
9. Tin containing my putty eraser
10. Staedtler Mars 780 Lead holder
11. Rexel Cumberland; Derwent Graphic
12. Faber Castell; Eco Pigment; Black; 0.1.0.3, 0.5, 0.7
13. Colour mixing chart. I made using colours from paint box to make mixing on location much quicker
14. Kitchen roll
15. Scale Finder
16. Perspective Finder
17. Picture Finder

Reasons for my choice of content

The biggest advantage of putting together a travel kit, even if you don’t intend to travel with it, is that it makes it so much quicker and easier to locate your favorite and essential items, when you want to sketch.

What to Include?

This will depend on your style of art. My preference is for pencil and ink sketching, perhaps a little pen & wash if time allows. In the past I’ve always carried FAR too much kit and this is now the most essential items and things I actually use.

Something to draw with:

Staedtler; Mars 780 Lead Holder

• The pens I have are in black and sepia to give me options depending on the atmosphere of the sketch I’m creating.
• Pencils; I moved over to the Staedtler Mars 780 lead holder a few years ago and for most of my sketching it is a firm favorite. You can buy leads in a variety of tones and the big advantage is that the end of the holder contains a sharpener, again saving you carrying another piece of kit.
• Brushes: I just discovered Water brushes which I ADORE and have stopped me carrying loads of traditional brushes with me. I need a flat one, Zig do one so it’s on my wish list!!
• Eraser: I use a putty eraser as it leaves no residue and you can form it into really sharp points if you want to erase in a small area of your work. I keep mine in a plastic bag, in a little tin. This keeps it fresh between trips and stops it drying out.
  

  Faber Castell Art Eraser. Stored in a tin

Something to draw/paint onto

Winsor & Newton, Heavy weight wire O Sketch book

• Paper/card; I have a handmade sketch book which I could just drop in my pocket in there. I added water-colour paper and some cartridge paper so I have options. I put larger water-colour paper, should I settle  somewhere for a longer session. I love the spiral bound sketchbook by Winsor & Newton as it means I don’t have the ‘other’ page of a bound book getting in the way. I can just fold the other cover, back on itself. It also gives a firm surface to work on, so I don’t need to carry a board.

Something to paint with

Winsor & Newton Field Box (in use)

• Paint; I adore the Winsor and Newton Field box as it has everything I need in a really compact form.

At a pinch..if pushed.. I could get away with a pencil, a 0.1 pen (either colour) Field box, sketch book and the three water-brushes. They are all in this core kit, so if I want the option of sketching on a day trip, I can just pick those out and drop them in my pocket/or bag.

Summing up

It’s amazing how motivating it is putting together your favorite items like this. Since I put this kit together I’ve regularly got it out to sketch, not out and about, but indoors and in the garden too. Now when I’m feeling arty, I just grab this and it has all I need, together in one place.

How about making your own travelling art kit? Why loose precious sketching time rummaging round the house for your sketching pens or brushes. Gather your favorite items together in a small box, you notice I say small box! If you’re going to leave the house with it, it doesn’t want to be the size of a car!!! Remember you’ll be carrying it to your chosen painting spot! I’ll post a tutorial soon for how to put your own kit together.

So what are your essential, can’t leave home without them, art items?

Would love to see your art kits. I’m sooo nosy

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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Product Review: W&N Galeria acrylic paint

Welcome Back

In today’s post I will be reviewing;

W&N Galeria Acrylic Paint

Product Details

• Manufacturer/Brand; Winsor & Newton/ Galeria
• Item number 2190517
• RRP at time of writing: £33

This review is mainly about the paint itself, rather than specifically this set.

Reason For Buying

I wanted to try these paints as an affordable way to build a colour pallet. I hoped they would be fluid enough for One stroke Painting as I want to use them with Sheena Paint Fusion stamps. Wanted to experiment with techniques to see what can be achieved with acrylic paint.

Pros/Cons

Pros

• Quality paint for the price
• Good selection of colours available, including metallic’s (available individually, separately from this set)
• Good selection of mediums to mix with the paint to alter how the paint looks or performs
• Ideal for newbies to acrylic paint
• Will work for one stroke painting
• Super smooth and a joy to paint with

Cons

Still a bit of a smell but way less than System 3 by Daler Rowney!!!

Build Quality

Excellent. Paint is superb and the metal tubes for the 60 mls make them robust for storage

Value for Money

Excellent! Quality paint for the price point.

Would I buy it Again?

Yes! I’ll be collecting a good selection of these.

Summing up

If you want a quality paint but are on a tight budget these are an excellent way to go. There is a superb range of colours available at good prices, the mediums are a good price too and have a huge range of options!

If you want to upgrade from ‘craft’ paint these have the option of all the mediums to give you a lot of scope for altering the appearance and performance of the paint. Really good value for money, go for them if you can.

Links

Please follow the links below for more information about Winsor and Newton, their products and where you can get them.

• Winsor and Newton
• Resource Centre. Colour charts etc
• Where to buy Winsor and Newton products
• Galeria paints and mediums

Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon

Billie

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