Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolors
Daniel Smith • www.danielsmith.com

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums, and Daniel Smith Extra Fine Quinacridone Watercolors are my new found love. The colors are unique in the fact they combine the power of staining pigments with the luminosity of transparent colors. Quinacridone colors flow beautifully, have incredible depth, and can be lifted easily while still wet. They can be used alone or mixed with colors presently on your palette. Daniel Smith Quinacridone colors are ground extrafine, their lightfastness is extremely permanent, and their transparent colors fall in the medium staining range. They are available in twelve vibrant colors: Violet, Sienna, Magenta, Burnt Scarlet, Pink, Coral, Burnt Orange, Rose, Gold, Deep Gold, Red, and Fuchsia. All colors are ideal for glazing and their gold and orange hues are vibrant replacements for earth colors. A fun trick I came upon is to lay them side by side with another color and let the colors slowly merge together to create several unique colors on their own. The colors they create on the painting surface are so fresh they make your painting come alive.

Silver Brush Limited also carries a really versatile tote called Petite Totes. They come in red, blue, and black, and are available in two styles. The round tote (11-1/4" x 7-3/8") features eight outside pockets around the perimeter with strong elastic bands that hold items firmly in the pockets, has two sturdy handles for carrying, and a deep center area to store all your painting accessories. This tote is capable of housing both long- and short-handled brushes.

The rectangle tote is slightly smaller in size (7-1/2" x 5" x 6") and is a perfect storage container for all your short-handled brushes and miscellaneous painting accessories. These sturdy totes are also perfect storage containers for gardening, needlework, knitting supplies, scrapping supplies, and more. The durable fabric keeps its shape even when weighed down with supplies and is easy to transport. I love my Petite Totes!

If pink is your favorite color, carry your art in style with Royal & Langnickel’s PinkArt Artist Portfolio! This 18" x 14" portfolio has a front zipper pocket for holding incidentals, two inside storage pockets to accommodate both large and small art, plus a removable shoulder strap. The outer nylon cover has a cushioned inner lining under it and the outer nylon covering wipes down easily to keep it fresh and soil free. It will hold an amazing amount of work within its zippered dimensions, and the durable design will last you for years to come.

Aquabord is a new watercolor painting surface created by Ampersand. The lightweight board is easy to transport, requires no pre-stretching or mounting, can be framed like traditional watercolor paper, or displayed in its natural state on an easel. It is archival and the acid-free textured clay surface absorbs water like a fine watercolor paper. The unique surface formula allows you complete control while painting and your colors look fresh, bold, and luminous. I painted my sunflower project in this issue on Aquabord and loved the effects I could create on it. Color lift-out (lightening a color hue or total removal to expose the white of the board) was easy to attain (the paint only lifted where I wanted it to), and the panel surface was never damaged during the process. Additional color layers were received well, and I never had to worry about a previous layer lifting off the board during glazing. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this surface and loved the fact that I didn’t have to frame my final piece.

One of my favorite brush series on the market is Black Velvet by Silver Brush Limited. These watercolor brushes contain a unique blend of natural squirrel hair and a new black synthetic filament called Risslon. Squirrel hair is wonderful for watercolor painting because it holds large amounts of color and releases it with perfect control. By itself, though, squirrel hair is delicate, so the addition of the synthetic filament allows the brush head to resist wear and tear plus have wonderful snap and spring to it. The Black Velvet #8 round Series 3000S is my all-time favorite round brush, because the shape of the brush is full and round at the bottom and sleek and tapered at the tip. I can paint in a small area using just the tip, or I can apply additional pressure and the hairs will spring out and fill in large areas. I never have to change brushes as I paint using this wonderful brush. My brush is twelve years old and still performs as it did the first day. Black Velvet brushes come in various sizes and shapes, including round, script, square wash, oval wash, striper, wash, and jumbo round wash.

Creating metal shapes using a spinning lathe is now a respected art form due to all the intricate labor-intensive designs different tradesmen and artists have created with this method. Western Metalware, now Western Metal Spinning and Mfg., creates all their plates, bowls, and round trays using a spinning lathe. They also carry a variety of shaped items they have created using a “form/drawn in press” method. All their products are made with food-grade aluminum that has a 3003H14 hardness. Food-grade aluminum can safely come in contact and be used with food. I love working with this surface. The metal art comes already primed, smooth, and ready to paint. The primer they use is oil based to ensure durability and is sprayed on both sides of the metal surface in a very thin, smooth layer. Their special formula primer allows acrylics, as well as oils, to be painted directly on the primed surface without additional surface preparation. The 11-1/2" x 11-1/2" place mat and accompanying napkin ring are both examples of unique surfaces within their metalware line. Peggy Harris used the 17"-diameter bowl as the painting surface for her fern design in the August 2010 of PaintWorks, and the sculptured edge tray is a newer item recently added to their metalware collection that I fell in love with. Western Metal Spinning and Mfg. has been in business for over sixty-five years. All their products, as well as all the raw materials that go into their products, are made in the USA. They accept specialty custom design requests as well as offer a variety of spun and pressed metalware items.