Anilinky watercolour paints

Having recently rediscovered these paints in amongst my old art supplies, it was time to re-acquaint myself with their properties.  I used them for a couple of rough sketches in the Hahnemuhle Grey Book.  They are very intense and I found it difficult to get the subtle shades I am used to with my usual Winsor & Newton watercolours; they felt more like a cross between gouache and watercolour. I probably just need a bit more practice with them.

Anilinky watercolours overlaid with a few strokes of white oil pastel at the top of the image

Watercolour marker sketch in Burnt Umber, Anilinky watercolours,
highlights added with cream Posca pen

The twelve colours in the paint box

I will paint another colour chart and put it on my windowsill for a couple of months just to see how permanent the pigments are.

I have had these paints for quite some years, but I see they are still available on the internet and very inexpensively priced - in some adverts they are called "watercolour dyes" and there is a suggestion that they can be used on fabric!

More mini collages

A few more mini collages on the Hahnemuhle 3" x 4" sample paper.  These are great to make when I only have a limited amount of time in my art space or have no larger art project on the go.  Again, scraps of hand printed tissue, book pages, lino prints, odd sketchbook drawings, postage stamps, fabric oddments, texture paste, gesso, acrylic paint, coloured pencil, gel pens.  Anything goes!

Another sample sheet from Hahnemuhle - Akademie watercolour paper "Britannia" - on which I have tried out watercolour paints, watercolour markers and a couple of small ink and gouache resist images. These all worked well and I was particularly pleased that the latter came out so well - I have tried this technique on Bockingford paper, but when I washed off the gouache all the ink went as well and I was left with almost blank piece of paper - all that work down the drain!

Hahnemuhle Bristol card

Time to test out another of Hahnemuhle's products.  The Bristol A4 pad I have contains 20 sheets of 120 lbs card and indicates it is "Suitable for pencil, Indian ink, pen fineliner, airbrush and acrylic marker.  Bright white, smooth surface, high opacity.  Resistant to erasure, exceptional cutting and printing properties."  I believe its main function is intended for graphic design and illustration.

I decided to start by using some of my handmade stamps, printing with gesso tinted with fluid acrylics.  Once dry, I tried out a combination of dip pen with acrylic ink, a Pitt artist pen and a metallic gel pen for additional line work.  These all worked very well on the smooth surface.  My intention was to make a small fold book, but I hadn't made allowance for the thickness of the card which didn't lend itself to a multi-fold structure - however, it would be ideal for a single fold or concertina style card.

Hahnemuhle goodies

On Friday I received a nice big parcel from the German papermakers Hahnemuhle.  I had applied for their recently advertised free samples, but having liked what they saw on my blog they offered me some further supplies to review.  So now I shall have to set to and try them out.

Ten large sheets of Bamboo paper, a watercolour pad and a Black Book, plus some extras -
all tastefully wrapped in red tissue,  it's just like Christmas!