So back in November, I ordered my first selection of Daniel Smith paints. This article is a collection of a series of pages from my sketchbooks exploring the new paints and comparing with WN and Sennelier.

Been waiting for the Aus dollar to become stronger against US to buy some Daniel Smith paints. I was expecting to wait 6 weeks for my paints… just in time for my XMas holidays and by that time I would have made serious dents into my Sennelier set (now I feel totally extravagent… though paint is the one art supply that I ALWAYS use – and use up!)

But the sheer excitement was subdued by a surprise which threw me totally when I went to add a bit of shadow to my palette (you can tell my the over dark over painted shadow) Of course still love my new paints…just got to play with them more….

Notice that I did a bit of collage – the DS envelope with Sheer Heaven paper over…

Getting the right neutral mix – blue grey t warm grey is SO important to me and that is why I was so thrown last week that when I got my Daniel Smith paints the burnt sienna was weird – the irony was that it was the only colour that I did not compare the pigment with W&N!?!

Anyway… trying so more alternatives and once again putting in action on a scribble sketch is the best way to find out how it works

Guess what! I have finished my journal – Kates journal class has certainly increased my usage of pages this week. So I have decided to go for the small folded journal I made last year out of 1 sheet of Fabrinao 300gsm hot press.

Oh! so nice to use watercolour paper – I can see that this might just be the end of the Daler Rowney Cartridge books….

Continuing my traditional of starting a new journal with a sketch of my palette – most of the time it has changed by the end of the book…but I can guarrantee that it will not happen in this case as it is a small book and I have to get DS paints from the states – so I can hardly just try out a few more tubes. Of course I could give in and replace DS with W&N burnt sienna…but I am hanging in there for present!

After seeing amazing work done in watercolour on the moleskine sketchbook yellow paper (such as Wil Freeborn and Van Occupather/Sketchbuch) I thought I would give it a try.

Wow! what weird effects…but I am surprised how bright the colours are and there is something really nice about the texture created. I can understand that people would get hooked on these effects.

This is the wee sennelier set I bought in Paris with some extra colours in the middle. I am using this during the week in an effort to lighten my work bag.

Comparing three brands!