Conte Pastel chalk on newsprint - colorized digitally.


Watercolor on printing paper

5 completed and 1 new.

It is getting very cluttered.

My setup and I am bring out today for a test run.

I am always looking for a good and economical easel box to carry with me when I go plein air painting. The easel that I have is not enough. Soon enough I found one on Amazon, "Sienna Plein Air Artist Pochade Box Easel", and it just arrived. Unboxing the package was exciting enough. I am impressed by the wood finish and how everything fits nicely. It doesn't weight too much too. You can see the pix here:















I have yet to test it, but I tried mounting it to my own easel and it works. Well time to paint.

For this series, there are 2 types of toned papers” Warm Tan, and the Cool Grey. For the review I have only tried the “Warm Tan”. The series comes in 2 sizes too. 5.5” X 8.5” and 8.5” X 11”. Both types contain 128 pages. According to the manufacturer, the sketch paper is 100% recycled, and contains 30% post-consumer fiber, acid free.

What is post-consumer fiber? The latter is a type of paper material that has been discarded after someone has used it and then recycled; in other words it comes from products that have reached the consumer and then been recycled back into the paper making process.

The journal is bound by Smyth-sewn binding so you can lay the pages flat as you work on it, but not totally without first pressing hard at the spine. In the process of sketching or drawing, you still need to hold the pages with your non-drawing hand in order to keep them flat to draw comfortably. To help, I sometimes hold some pages together with a binding clip.

According to Strathmore, the journal sketchbook is suitable for use with the following medium: graphite, chalk, charcoal, sketching stick, markers, china markers, colored pencils, pens and white gel pens. Paper surface is also slightly textured but not rough. Though the weight of the paper is 118gsm (80 lb.), it feels slightly thicker and more durable.

I like the journal cover, which is slightly textured, matte in dark chocolate brown. The soft textured cover offers a non-slippery surface to hold comfortable in the hand. The spine only measures about 2cm, so it is really easy to handle and carry around without much hassle. The hard-bound-cover also provides a good sturdy surface to draw on if you are sketching on location, whether you are sitting or standing. Overall it leaves a very good first impression.

Initial Test:

I did a location sketch on the first page with a Hero fountain pen loaded with Noodlers bulletproof black fountain pen ink, and added some light watercolor wash and finally gouache white to add some highlights. My fountain pen glides well over the paper and I am quite satisfied with the variety of line weights I can produce. However the surface consistency is not constant as some portions becomes too “smooth” or “waxy” resulting in my pen gliding over without any ink flow. Paper takes in wash very well but buckles slightly when the wash is dried. The brown tan makes adding white fun. By choosing suitable areas to add some hints of highlights, the drawing pops.


The following are images of pages on which I test the paper with Chinese ink, Noodlers non-bleedproof Red-Black ink used with a Shakespeare nib pen, Daler Rowney brown Calli ink, and a brush pen loaded with black indian ink.

Brush Pen
This was done with a brush pen and Rotring drawing indian ink. Gouache white is added subsequently. Ink bleeds slightly while applied and even more when you are drawing slowly. To draw a thin line I need to draw quite fast over the surface. The wash is done by dipping the brush pen directly into a container of water thus diluting the ink on the brush and then painting over the ink lines.


Dip Pen
My next test was drawing with a "Shakespeare" dip pen and Noodlers non-bleed proof Red-Black fountain pen ink. The nib glides easily and smoothly but there will be occasions when the point of the pen would cut into the surface when I overwork a line. It would become worst if you are using cross-hatching method to add tones to your pen drawing. I don't think the paper can take too much scraping and scratching with a dip pen.


Daler Rowney Brown Calli ink is used for adding wash to the sketch below. While doing the line art for this, I notice there was excessive ink flow at some portions of the paper resulting very thick lines.


Watercolored ink added as background. Ink bleeds slightly on the other side. Not recommended for heavy usage.


Felt-tip marker (walnut color)


Pen & ink with ink wash


Pastel: Sepia pastel chalk which blends well on surface. Though the tooth holds the chalk particles well, you still need fixative to protect it from smudging later. Inked lines were made with a fountain pen that produces quite even line weight.


Colored Pencils: Derwent Colored pencils [left] and watercolor colored pencils [right]. Paper surface provides good adhering property to hold the pigment particles well. The brown tan also gives good contrast to the hues.  The captions were added with a General's Layout Pencil. The sketchbook is really ideal for dry medium, such as colored pencils, graphite pencils and even pastel chalk.

These colors are from W&N Enamel coated mobile palette box and I am testing them on this rough watercolor paper that I got from Straits... cannot remember the name of the paper already. Fabriano rough? Judging from the texture, you would expect to get lotsa granulation. But you don't see much due to the absorbency of the paper. Colors faded just slightly when they are dried.

Though it looks like I am testing the paper, I was in fact cleaning the paints on my palette box.

Did a sketch with a quill nib after seeing a drawing done by Moebius. I was always thrilled to see his drawings and comics and it would be great to see his original work!

The colours in the Colorex Atelier set include Primary Yellow, Sanquin, Cyan, Cobalt Blue, Sepia, Magenta, white and Violet. These come in 45ml plastic bottles with eye-dropper caps that are easily opened and put back on again without much hassle. The eye-dropper makes it handy to get ink from the bottle without the need for pouring from the neck opening. If you are using dip pens, the wide opening makes it easy to dip your pen into the bottle, however it is difficult to see the ink level and you might over dip and mess up your pen holder. Alternatively I would suggest transferring some ink over to a smaller bottle so dipping can be made easy. The set also comes with a bottle of Black Indian Ink and a bottle of Drawing Gum or Masking Fluid.

Pebeo's Colorex watercolour inks are bright, luminous, transparent and produce a velvety finish when the inks are dried on the paper ground.  These highly concentrated inks can be used like water-colour, either straight from the bottle or diluted with water.

On the 45ml bottles that I received, the specification is written as follow: Transparent ink. Made from dyes. Bright, rich colours. Limited light-fastness. Diluted with water. For air-brush, brush and pen. Therefore, unlike most artist grade paints, Colorex inks have limited light-fastness that may not be desirable for any artists who want to make their work archival or to last long. It would be unadvisable to use these inks if you have the intention to sell your artwork to the collectors.

Here are the ink swatches I made with the ink direct from the bottle without diluting with water.

Sanguin is bright enough to be used as a red substitute. Personally I find it a tat too bright for comfort and I would suggest that is is mixed with either blue or sepia to tone it down a notch or two before painting.

Conversely sepia is a good dark brown that is very suitable for adding a monotone wash on any ink or pencil sketches. When used without diluting with water, it is dark enough for shadow areas, and it can be easily diluted to produce a wide range of tones. Sanguin can be used together with Sepia to make a warmish brown with a good range of tones. Both Sanguin and Sepia can be mixed with Cobalt Blue to make a good dark brown or grey, which I find it a little too cool. There is a slight tint of green in the final mix.

Here's a pen & ink sketch painted with sanguin mixed with sepia.


Here a sketch painted with just sepia alone.


Another sketch, painted with Colorex Sanguin mixed with a tint of cobalt blue.


 Encre de Chine - Indian Ink (Black)
I love the quality of the black from Pebeo's black "graphic" india ink/encre de chine. Very black, sits nicely on top of the paper and is shiny. No bleeding into the paper, and no feathering. This drawing was purposely done on some old cartridge papers from a sketch pad and with a new dip pen. Normally I would avoid using indian inks on such  condition because it will encourage bleeding and feathering. But with Pebeo's indian ink, there is none. And furthermore, I like the satin finish the ink produced when it is dried.

With the same paper I tried drawing with the same dip pen but with a different ink - a carbon ink from Japan. The result is shown below:


You could clearly see the bleeding through for the drawing that was done with the carbon ink, whereas there is none from Pebeo's indian ink, which also works very well with a brush. Most importantly ink flow is good on dip pens and brush. No observable clogging or drying, no blotting or dripping from the nib thus showing good adhering property too.



Just a word of caution. The Colorex bottles are made with plastic which is light weight. Good for transporting while the seal of the caps is good so there is no leak no matter how you carried these bottles, but make sure you screw them tight first. However due to the light weight property of the bottles, it is tremendously easy to topple them if you are not careful with handling them. Just to prove it, I have accidentally tipped them over twice on the same night (but I managed to salvage all the ink that was spilled on my work desk).

Parts of a Parallel Pen

The Parallel pen is an ingenious invention. 2 pieces of steel plates placed parallel to each other to make up the nib so ink flows differently as compared to a regular fountain pen. Though the parallel pen is also a fountain pen, the ink flows along and across the entire the unique parallel plate structure that achieves a more beautiful and sharper handwriting than existing calligraphy pens. You can write and draw with the pen with any direction and orientation of the pen. To get sharper lines, you write or draw with the corners and vice versa. This is the most flexible pen I have ever seen.

Since I bought and used it a couple of months ago, I have not washed the pens yet. In my collection I have the 2.4mm, 3.8mm and 6mm. I used them without using the cartridge but by filling the barrel with ink. It will get messy if you are not careful with this. Cleaning is easy too. I do notice that the ink does not stain the inside walls of the pen barrel. I flushed the ink away with just water. I dismantled the nib from the feed with ease too, and then flushed them clean without a glitch. Putting the parts back is as easy as taking them apart. However I will be using the cartridge for the pens just so that I can preserve the lifespan of the pen as long as I wanted. Its hard to find parallel pens in Singapore ya know?

Just in case, here's a sketch/ drawing I did with a 6mm Parallel pen.



You can achieve both thick and thin lines at the same time, depending on how you wield the pen. :D

[caption id="attachment_2321" align="alignnone" width="584"] Mixing colors with Shinhan's Artists' Acrylic Paints[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2324" align="alignnone" width="640"] Shinhan's Artist Acrylic 12 Colors Set[/caption]

Product Details:
- Shinhan (www.shinhanart.co.kr)
- 12 Colors Set
- Acrylic Polymer Emulsion Colors
- SH102L
- 20ml per tube

Colors:

Titanium White (562)
Black (560)
Lemon Yellow (517)
Permanent Yellow Deep (515)
Yellow Ochre (551)
Carmine (503)
Vermilion (505)

Permanent Green Light (526)
Viridian Hue (530)
Phthalo Cyanine Blue (540)
Cobalt Blue Hue (538)
Burnt Sienna (553)

The tubes come in 20ml or 0.68fl.oz (fluid ounce) and is made of plastic, which makes the artists' quality paints look like students' grade paints. However the lids are well fitting and are easily unscrewed from the neck due to their reasonable diameter and height. I believe the 12 colours set is made as a test set since the tubes' volume does not allow painting at a larger scale. For testing the colours, I used the paints on acrylic papers that come in a pad. The set is small and handy and is light weight so it is ideal for travel. It will be great to get the set if you are trying out acrylic painting for the first time.

First of all, the paints from the tubes flow well and do not feel plasticky. The hues are brillant and has a wonderful transparent quality if mixed with the right amount of water. Besides the paints mix well and quickly with water without leaving undissolved lumps at any point. Good acrylic paints should be short and buttery and Shinhan's acrylic paints fulfill that quality so far. The brilliance and transparency of the hues means that we could use it like watercolour. The intensity of the colours does not diminish when thicker paints are used so the resultant effect is bright, fresh, intense colours.

The paints mix well with each other without compromising on colour intensity and freshness. Mixing Perm Yellow Deep with Carmine produces an orange that is pretty close to getting Vermilion. Mixing Lemon Yellow and Carmine produces a cool bright orange. The result of mixing Lemon Yellow and Cobalt Blue Hue is a pale, cool, and pleasant bluish green. Adding more Cobalt Blue turns the mixture to a cool tray bluish tray. Lemon Yellow and Phthalo Cyanine Blue produces a bright yellow green that is pretty close to pre-mixed Perm Green Light initially, but produces a wide spectrum of bluish greens since Phthalo Cyanine Blue is quite rich on its own. Adding Perm Yellow Deep to Viridian produces a rich yellow green that looks like Sap Green suitable for painting tropical foliage. Adding Vermilion warms it and gradually becomes a rich deep dark green and brown gray. Adding a lot more vermilion finally turns the resulting gray to Vandyke Brown and eventually to a dark Umber, which is smiler to mixing Burnt Sienna and Phthalo Cyanine Blue.

The results from this initial colour mixing test are quite satisfactory. The simple 12 colours set has lots to offer, but I wish the tubes come in larger sizes. The paints are versatile enough to mix well with water and with each other. The rich pigments mix a huge range of colours from just 10 paints. Besides, the paints flow nicely and easily washable from brushes.

So far my favoritest fountain pen is a Hero #578. I used to use Lamy and I have three of them. But I find Hero a lot more flexible and it satisfy my needs for a variety of line characters and quality when I sketch or draw. There are times when I used it as a brush, filling up darks and shadows very quickly allowing me to establish light and shade within a short time on my sketches. Now to save ink, I am using Pentel brush pens to fill in the darks, also better looking darks.

Due to overused, one of my Hero was damaged, I plucked up enough courage to remove the pen nib and feed from the section. Now here are the parts of a Hero fountain pen and their functions.

[caption id="attachment_2313" align="alignnone" width="584"] Parts of a Hero Fountain Pen[/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_2309" align="alignnone" width="584"] Derwent Aquatones - Tiong Bahru Monkey God Temple[/caption]

Tried Derwent Aquatone (12 colours) today!! No wonder I was craving for Sushi Tei's rainbow roll this evening.

Aquatone - interesting medium. Feels waxy like crayons yet they are not that "drawable" (if there is such a word), so I used them to paint by dissolving the paint with a wet brush and paint direct on paper... like dissolving a cake of watercolor half pan. Then I decided to dip the entire sticks into a bucket of water (thanks Grace Liau for lending me water) and then paint direct with the sticks... nice effect... can create impasto too - portions where the paints "floated" on top of each other... dissolves very well and the colours are rich and brilliant. Thanks Mr Teoh for the box!! — at Monkey God Temple.

Cleaning and reading about fountain pens

I was cleaning my pen with pen cleaning fluid or solutions because for the last few weeks I have been getting lots of pen issues - mainly clogging. And at the same time I was reading about how a fountain pen works so I could understand the mechanism and then know how to salvage a clogged pen. I tried cleaning solution this time cause soaking in water alone did not help. Even in hot water. One of my pen is working better now and I feel a little happier. I have a new pen standing by but I really want the old one to work again. I think I will clean and flush my pen more often now so there is no need for an overhaul in the future. Actually my pens are working very well until there was a couple of weeks I was using brush pens more frequently, thus the pens clogged.

This is where I grew up, and I am glad to see this row of shop houses still intact and not demolished or becoming offices or pubs. The walls were repainted several times but that was all. I am happy to see that these shophouses remain as residential and not converting to commercial uses. Anyway, I sketched this a Hero fountain pen on location and added watercolor washes later in my studio. Here's is also a pix of how and where I work. In my palette, I am using Shinhan premium watercolors which is quite a joy to use. The pigments are brilliant and pretty thick so you get lot of saturation and color from a little paint off the tube. They are easy to mix and dissolves very easily even after the paints dried on the palette. The color wheel you see in the background is created with Shinhan watercolors too.

[caption id="attachment_2295" align="alignnone" width="584"] Everton Road - ink & wash[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2289" align="alignnone" width="584"] Sketching at Garden Dome[/caption]

Trying out Shinhan's TOUCH markers. Brilliant colors. Easy to use and blend well with each other.

[caption id="attachment_2271" align="alignnone" width="584"] Grid-It-Organizer[/caption]

A pen, ink and wash sketch of my watercolor palette and paint. This mobile watercolor box is Rembrandt. It comes empty with 2 areas that you can house your 1/2 pans in. It is light weight and is very handy. As you can see I placed 11 1/2 pans and one 5ml tube. The paints are not the standard that come in a set, but these are essential colors to make a painting.

[caption id="attachment_2268" align="alignnone" width="584"] My watercolor mobile palette[/caption]