Journal

Favorite art supplies

I’m asked a lot about my art supplies. In general this would be watercolors. Some brands I use are Winsor & Newton, Sennelier and Schmincke Horadam, either pans or tubes, but I prefer tubes. These brands are light-fast and highly pigmented.
Then, in addition to the watercolors, I use Ecoline which is fluid watercolor (not waterproof) in bright colors. The paint is pretty thin and not light-fast, but perfect for illustrations that are done for reproduction and don’t need to be light-fast.
As to brushes I have a Chinese calligrapy brush which I love working with, it holds a lot of water and/or paint. Next to the brush you can see the twig I cut from a Hydrangea plant when pruned and which I use as an ink pen, it’s perfect to draw thin lines with or to add little details like the dots you can see in my work.
I’ve used many different papers in the past year, from cheap paper to more expensive paper and I cannot say I have a favorite although it has to be pretty thick because I use lots of water and I love smooth paper.
When I intend to make a painting I use Bamboo watercolor paper from Hahnemühle, it’s wonderful to work with, it absorbs the paint beautifully.
For illustrations I use smoother paper, which allows me to work slower and I can draw in the paint with the twig before the paper has completely absorbed the paint.
The twig is also used for the tiny white dots I draw with white ink. I recently use the Uni-ball Signo broad ink pens in white and gold though, to add the little dots.

I like to illustrate my imaginary world by expressing and translating my thoughts and feelings into color and pattern.