Share Your Favorite Art Supplies!

[Charlie O’Shields]

I’ll kick things off, since I’m also testing things to see if this will work! I have tried lots of different watercolor setups and brands, but I keep going back to where I first started: Joe Miller’s travel set and palette and M. Graham Paint (really love honey-based paint!).

[Claire Bureau]

Hi Charlie.  I have read that honey-based paints can be tricky to use outdoors, as bees are actually attracted to it!  Have you ever had that problem?

[Debra “Kate” Powell]

I’ve never had bees bother me but I do have trouble with them drying quickly in Portland Oregon so I use them only in studio.  I love them tho – wonderful colors.

[Debra “Kate” Powell]

Charlie can you put this forum in the right-side list so I can find it easily… navigating is still hard for me as I get used to your site.  I ofund it but can’t delete this dang comment!!!!!  AAACK!

[Charlie O’Shields]

I’ve never had a bee problem, though I was warned about that in the very beginning. I typically paint indoors, even when I make my initial sketch outdoors, so it’s never really been a problem for me.

[Charlie O’Shields]

Great idea! I just added Recent Forum Topics and a Forum Search to the sidebar. And sorry about that… forums are structured differently so you can’t delete comments (or it causes broken pages). But thanks for the other cool idea… hehe… I have now made it possible to mark a comment as private so it only goes to the person and not viewed publicly! 😃 (I think… all still needs to be tested as always… thanks for jumping in and trying this. It really helps me get it right!)

[Debra “Kate” Powell]

I googled the kit and that is a great price for sturdy well-thought out !

[Charlie O’Shields]

Yeah I really love it… and true… the price is sort of unbelievable. I’ll have had mine for two years this fall and it’s holding up great! I don’t travel a ton with it, but I love the compactness and since I sketch small it holds my entire studio! hehe

[Claire Bureau]

I don’t know if anyone else has tried this product.  I got it as a freebie in an order from either Cheap Joe’s or Jerry’s (been a while so I don’t remember) and I hadn’t used it until recently (I honestly thought it was a marker so I had put it away!!)  It is called Molotow Grafx Masking Fluid, and it comes as a pen-like applicator so you can draw fine-ish lines easily (mine is the 2mm size) .  I was really happy with how easily it went on, how blue it was on paper, how easily it came off (Arches paper), and how effective it was at preserving the small areas of white I needed (I will post the finished painting sometime next week (I hope!)).  Anyone else tried it?

Here is a link to Amazon, but I’m sure you can get it elsewhere.

I am surprised by the markdown on the price…. I hope it doesn’t mean it’s been discontinued!

[Cathy Inzer]

Hi Charlie, what colors are in your little paintbox? I am trying to simplify my paint selection and love what you are able to create with your paints!

[Charlie O’Shields]

I list the colors and paints that I use at the bottom of each post, as they sometimes change, but my little metal palette is from Cheap Joe’s and has M Graham watercolors in it. Here’s the original post that lists those colors: https://doodlewash.com/my-little-palette/

[Peggy Berk]

I bought that kit recently but find it a bit heavy….and replaced the palette with a Meeden tin (you can actually fit 21 half pans into the 12 half pan tin!!) as I like to be able to switch out the pans in my palettes and this one didn’t allow for that…  The quality of the items in the kit is really high.

 

I tried some M.Graham paints for the first time a few weeks ago – totally seduced by the colors! — but the Transparent Red iron Oxide and the Azo Green dried sticky and didn’t self level, which I’ve never encountered before unless using a medium…

[Debra “Kate” Powell]

(I’m relying to Claire Bureau but think I made a mistake).

Thanks for that.  I use Fineline but am always on the lookout for better thin masking.

They do these specials on Amazon to see if there is a market for them.

[Tonya L]

Claire, I have one of these and just love it! Waaayyy better than trying to put down masking fluid with a brush. I have noticed that it picks up pigment if I use it on top of a layer of paint, but a lot of the other brands do that also. I’ve got the 4.0 mm tip but I’d like to get the thin tip also. I’ll check Amazon… maybe it’s still available at a great price!

[Tonya L]

Peggy, M Graham is my go-to brand. I’ve used it for a couple of years now and never noticed that, and I live in a very humid climate. I wonder why only those two colors did that? I use both of those and never had a problem, so you may want to reach out to them. It might be an issue in production? Worth letting them know!