Watch me paint a bit while I review a new canvas notebook and new brand of acrylic paint

Check out this speed up painting while I review Cottonwood Arts canvas notebook and a new brand of acrylic paints, Twinkle Verse The Essentials (available in Amazon).

Face #5 29 Faces challenge

For this one I decided to try a set of CretacoloR oil based colored pencils. It is a very limited color set as you can see, but I have had it for a few years and never use it. So I decided to give it a try. 

They smudged a bit and stained my hand, specifically the black one. However I think they might be good to use with watercolors, because I will not loose my sketch lines and it might provide a nice look. I guess I will be experimenting with them again. 

I tried to see if the white would look white on top of the others but it mostly blended and lightened the other colors, so I don't have the lightest lights in this one. But I think that my witch came out okay. I am having fun trying to create different expressions and perspectives. It has been a good practice. 

Playing with alcohol markers

"Lola" by L. Rios all copyrights reserved

Finally, I decided to be brave and try out alcohol markers. All thanks to Jane Davenport's class Supplies Me, it is a lovely class where she shows how to use almost every art supply out there. Since I new that we were going to learn how to use alcohol markers, I went crazy and bought a few (not really, I bought lots). My collection of markers is mainly composed of Promarkers, followed by the new kid in the block, the Spectrum Noir (very affordable); and last but not least a few (very few) Copics.

For the Copics, due to the fact that they are so expensive, I just bought a couple of skin tones. The Promarkers I have in a wide range of colors and also in skin tones. I also got the Spectrum Noirs in skin tones, but also earthy tones, cool and warm grey tone. So, yes I did expend a lot in a spam of 5 months, trying to get a sample of every alcohol marker I could. For the sake of clarifying, the Supplies Me class does not required you to have all the alcohol markers that are out there; it was my own decision to get at least a sample of most of them.

Alcohol markers are very blend-able, and all the brands mentioned above works together very well. As you can see on the portrait I made and called "Lola", they blend pretty good. Please, keep in mind this is the first time I play with them for real, so it is not flawless but not too bad either. It wasn't totally easy, and it took some time to get the feeling of it and start learning how the markers behave on the paper, and how they interact with each other. Coloring with alcohol markers, requires patience and time if you want to get decent results at the beginning of this journey. I realize how different the coloring technique is, in comparison to colored pencils (like Prismacolors). The building up of the shadows is quite different that what I am use to with the Prismacolors. Lola's face, arms and hair were colored with alcohol markers; while the background and dress were colored with watercolors and distress stain, respectively on Canson Fanboy paper. This shows, how alcohol markers are also a great addition to your mixed media supplies.

The process for making "Lola" was fun and instructive; and I will definitely keep practicing coloring with alcohol markers and use them more often on my mixed media journaling. Will you give it a try?

Deals on art and crafts supplies

Some of the supplies I bought

This is a quick post about some good deals on crafts and art supplies. A.C. Moore has all the paper pads with 40% off, plus the new Spectrum Noir alcohol markers for $7.99 (set of 6). I just re-stocked on mixed media and pastel papers and added a few more colors to my new collection of alcohol markers. Stickers, open source papers, clear and wood stamps also have 40% off. Sharpie markers for 88 cents and some Cricut cartridges on sale too; so this is a great time to go and stock your art supplies.

 If you go to their website you can get a 40% and 50% coupons for one article at regular price. The 50% is only good for this upcoming Saturday (May 5,2012). They also have other great deals of stuff at 40% off. I'm not affiliated to A.C. Moore or anything; I just thought it was good to let everyone knows.

Michaels also have a 40% off coupon for one article at regular price; they also have had, for a while though, the distress crackle paint on clearance.