Materials & Media

I use a wide range of materials & Media including Acrylics (on Canvas), Watercolours, Inks, Vine Charcoal and Charcoal Pencils, Soft and Hard Pastels, Pastel Pencils, and occasionally Oils.

Acrylics

I paint with a wide variety of brands of Artist’s quality Acrylic Paints, including Golden Fluid Acrylics which I recently discovered and adore, they move so freely which is ideal for me as I do love to work quickly!

Watercolours

When I first began drawing and painting, my husband bought me a beautiful boxed set of Derwent Inktense Watercolour Pencils for Christmas and I still reach for them very occasionally, although I have since accrued a wide selection of watercolour paints of various brands. My absolute favourite Watercolour Paints are my St. Petersburgh pans. They have such rich depth, superb artist’s quality and the colours positively glow!

The Langton ‘Grain Fin’ 300gsm 140 lb textured watercolour paper is my preferred choice of paper, it simply ‘feels right’ for me.

 

 

Inks

I work with a number of Inks, their fluidity and freedom suits my loose style of artwork so perfectly as they flow and dry rapidly.

Among others, I use Shaeffer, Parker Quink, Daler Rowney Acrylic Inks, Winsor & Newton Inks and Bombay Inks.

Dr.Ph.Martin’s Bombay Inks are truly beautiful, their Fine Art Pigments mean their colours are intense and they are lightfast and archival so I know they will be around for a lot longer than me!

It is impossible to remove Inks which is one of the reasons why they excite me, once they’re on, they’re going nowhere so there’s no room for error, but that is part of their charm to me.

Charcoal

Charcoal (and Soft Pastels) have a ‘life’ to them that I adore! Because charcoal has the ability to smudge or smear with ease, it can be such a messy medium to work with but, as with inks, it has a freedom that suits me so well.

I use Willow Charcoal made by Coates and also Daler Rowney, and Derwent Charcoal Pencils for finer detail.

I recently purchased a tin of XL Derwent Charcoal ( please see my photograph featured here ) and am dying to try them out! I shall keep you updated when I have had a chance to do so but if you use them, please do let me know what you think of them in the comments section below? I would love to hear your thoughts.

The majority of artists prefer to paint over their initial charcoal drawings, but to me, as with a lot of watercolour paintings, there is something pure about the raw visibility of a sketch or outline that I don’t wish to cover up and I am still developing my own technique with charcoal and loving every minute!

Soft Pastels

I have a vast selection of Artist’s soft pastels, my absolute favourites being Unison, they are expensive but the quality is superb and the range of colours immense. I also love my Sennelier Pastels, Daler Rowney, Faber Castell and have a large shop cabinet full of a selection of Winsor & Newton and  Rowney pastels, so you could say I have a slight obsession with collecting them!

Soft Pastels truly are as delicate as butterfly wings and must be handled and treated with great care prior to framing. Some artists seal their pastel artwork but I never do as I feel the light, quality and ‘life’ loses it’s essence and the incredible glow of the colours becomes slightly dull.

Pastel Pencils

These are invaluable for fine detailed work and I have two brands I use, Faber Castell and KOH-I-NOR.

 

 

Oils

I very occasionally use Georgian Water Mixable Oils but, because I love to work fairly rapidly, more often than not I reach for my Artist’s Acrylics as I know they will dry quickly so that I can carry on creating as speedily as I wish!

I would welcome comments from fellow artists about your preferred artists’ materials, whether you are professional or amateur or anywhere between, we all have the same interests which are the love of painting and the joy of sharing that love!
Migglet x

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