Prima Watercolor Confections

The second day of no school and snow clean up and the Postman brought me the three Prima Watercolor confections from A Cherry on Top.  They are some cute little pans of watercolor in a sort of flimsy metal container. 

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The little boxes they come in are sweet and look pretty but they don't even have the names and numbers of the paint pans on them, the only hint of the contents are the color swatches.  I would have liked to have the names and numbers of the paint pans listed somewhere.  Maybe they are online somewhere. 

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There are three different sets and each set is supposed to have unique colors not in any of the other pans.  The Decadent Pie set has some metalic watercolor pans.

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Let's start with the classic set and unbox it.  When pulled from the pretty little box you get a black metal box.

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Open the black metal box and here is what is inside.....12 itty bitty wrapped confections.

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Now to get to the watercolor pans you need to unwrap two different wrappings.  Here is the first one unwrapped.

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Here we are still unwrapping.........

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Here is the wrapping and finally the first set unwrapped..........

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The last set and a good picture of the pan thing that the paint pans sit into.  Those two rails are sort of rivited onto the bottom which fits into the metal case on the left.  When the paint pans go into the grey metal rails there are little catches on the top and if the pans don't sit in there tightly you may be tempted to try and bend the edges of those holders in a bit to make the paint pans not move with the brush when using them.  Do NOT do it.  I tried that with one of mine and if you look closely you can see those dimples in the grey metal.....those dimples are sort of rivits but not rivits and they can pull out and then the paint pans not only will not be tight but then they will be tipped on that side.  The cases may be metal but they are not good quality metal.

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I took a return label and placed the name of the set unto the top of each set, none of them are marked so after you take the paint pans out of the wrapping there is no way to tell which set is which except the decadent pie set has a few pans that look somewhat metalic.  I suppose a person could keep them in the sweet paper boxes but I chose not to do that so I threw those boxes away.

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Here are the three sets all opened and ready to be used.

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I am not an artist, I am a crafter and I use paint, and markers and stuff to make things that make me happy.  I took a piece of watercolor paper and stamped 6 of one of Tim Holtz's flowers and started watercoloring using the classic set and the tropicals set.  I started with the dark one in the center which has way too much pigment.  I then moved on using less paint, more water, and about the same colors in different orders.   This watercolor blends well until it dries on the paper then it will reactivate to a certain extent but will not blend as well as it does when wet.  That is why on some you can see the lines where I let the first color dry before trying to blend with the second color.  Some I tried going over the blending marks using more color to try and get it to blend.  These watercolors would work lovely for the watercolor techniques that are popular on youtubes by the cardmakers.  The technique of watering down the paper and then dropping very watered down paint onto the wet and letting it swirl around.  I am sure I will work with these and learn the way they mix and blend.

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I had this little girl stamped out on Bristol paper from a colored pencil challenge and decided to use it with these watercolors and see how it worked.  I don't know, the shadows on the bottom of the dress/coat did not blend out as well as I would have liked.  I will keep trying.  So there you have it the unboxing and first use of the Prima Watercolor Confections.  Thank you for your time and I hope this has been helpful.

 

Derwent Colorsoft Pencils

I purchased the Derwent colorsoft pencils some time ago and have been using them a tiny bit for a couple years but haven't really gotten into using them heavily until just lately.  I watched quite a few videos on the youtubes and figured out that with these pencils you do not just color, you lay down color.  I also learned that one does not use cold press watercolor paper with colored pencils.  With the cold press watercolor paper you just cannot lay down the right amount of color for it to look right since most have tooth or a uneven finish.  Before using these Derwents I had a combination of cheap colored pencils that I had purchased about 30 years ago.  They worked fine, they colored, they just worked.  These work much better, they go on smoother and lay down more color with less work.

The Derwent colorsoft also blends really well without using any kind of medium.  You blend by coloring over the previous color and pulling the colors together.  The Derwent colorsoft are soft, isn't it nice they named them for their properties.  As in so soft that if you press too hard on a newly sharpened pencil lead it will break off.  That means if you are not careful when your pencils are newly sharpened you will be sharpening them once more.  But that same softness is what makes it so easy to lay down such nice rich colors. 

I happen to have the 72 count which is all the choice of colors one has with the Derwent colorsoft pencils.  They come in 24, 48, and 72 count boxes.  They come in those tins that are terrible to use and usually end up on the floor in a tumble.  I suggest one should get a pencil case or wallet to hold these beauties.  I acquired a very wonderful Derwent canvas carry all which is a fancy pencil case.  You can buy extra leaves to keep more pencils in this case.  This case is like a binder with binder rings in the center.  The leaves have holes with rivits so they should hold up well.  The stretchy pencil holders hold two pencils each and they are larger then regular pencil wallets so the Derwents do not go in and out hard.  I have all my colorsofts, my watercolors, my inktenses, and my metalics in this one case which zippers closed and keeps them safe and easy to use.

This image was colored on watercolor paper, and as you can clearly see the colors are not as solid as they should be. 

This is stamped on bristol and colored with the colorsoft pencils.  It was much easier to lay down color and blend on the bristol then the watercolor paper.

This is stamped on medium card stock.  It is also colored with Derwent colorsoft pencils.  I have also been coloring in some adult coloring books using these colored pencils.  They work very well on the paper in those coloring books.

Thank you for following along and I hope this can be helpful to someone.

 

Dina Wakely Heavy Body Acrylic Paint

I was watching the CHA 2015 demo videos and made the mistake of watching Dina Wakley demo her heavy body paint which has actually been out for almost a year now.  Ranger and Dina are bringing out 4 new colors and a pen tip for the paint tubes.  I have used Liquitex Basics and Distress Paint so I am not a novice at acrylic paint.  Since the new 2015 colors and the paint tube tip are not in stores yet I went ahead and ordered the original 12 just to see how they work.  The colors are beautiful, just beautiful.  They go on and spread really much better than Liquitex Basics.  It takes a very small amount of paint to paint a small art journal page or to spread a little color on the front of a card. 

So far I have used the small round blender from Ranger to spread the paint and this seems to work really well, I have also used a paint brush.  Dina sells a wonderful set of stiff brushes that comes as 4 brushes for around $10.00.  I used the 3/4 inch brush to spread red paint on the side of a Valentines tag and I really like the look using the stiff brush.  I haven't tried this heavy body paint with a gelli plate yet but am planning on trying that out tomorrow afternoon. 

I sound like an advertisement for this paint but I really like the colors, the consistency, and the blendability that is packed into these 2 ounce tubes.  I am hoping that they will last a long time since it takes so very little of this paint to do so much.  I also used this to paint on a stamp and stamp on the same above mentioned Valentines tags.  It worked out really well.  One thing that I picked up from watching the demos is that when using this paint use a dry brush, don't wet your brush first and let your brush dry or use a different brush after cleaning the brush.  There is no need to water this paint down at all.  I take that back you need just the tiniest of spritzs on the painted stamp right before you stamp.  The tiny spray adds a bit of moisture but does not make it a watercolor effect.  These paints are not meant for watercoloring, they are meant to be used right out of the tube for the best results.  If you want to extend the working time which is already quite long a person should add a little glazing medium instead of water.  Because they are a heavy body paint the "open" or working time while they are still wet is quite long compared to Liquitex Basics or Distress Paint.  Which means you can either use a heat gun to dry the paint or you can set the project aside and work on something else until the paint dries.

I can recommend these paints for the more artistic crafter.  I am not sure how many card makers would want these paints if they had never used acrylic paints in their projects or cards before.  There is a totally different feel and end result with these paints when compared to the regular crafters acrylic paint.  I am really looking forward to the tube pen to be brought to market because using that with these heavy body paints would be like using a dimension paint with a better tip.  The way the tip looks it can be used for writing which will be really fun because the writing will have dimension.

Well there you go, I like these paints a lot.  I would recommend them to anyone who wants to try a heavy body paint.

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