Prang-kenstein

Chatting with my peeps over at the Sketching Forum and i came up with an alternate solution to my small portable Winsor Newton 1/2 pan traveling watercolor set.

Combing through ebay turned up a lot of student watercolor sets that were perfectly viable, save for the junk paint.  So I picked a lightweight “professional” Prang double case of 16 wells.  It and a few new paints arrived this week and I set forth creating my new travel watercolor set.

 

First you have to get rid of whatever that paint is already in the trays.  This was a pic i took using an Xacto Knife and leverage method.  That seemed at the time wholly unsafe and stupid.  That is until i sliced up my finger about three minutes later when I confirmed how dumb that was.  Instead, turning on the hot water and letting it cascade over the wells for ten minutes proved to be far less dangerous to all.

 

With new paints, below, set into the case.  I’m now armed for adventure.  Two of the paints i’d wanted to use were not in a usable form in their tube and that’s why two of the wells are empty.  I’m going to rock this for a while and see if my demand confirms particular hues.

 

currently, left row: wn green gold; wn cadmium green deep; wn perylene green; wn cerulean blue; wn cobalt blue; qor ultramarine violet*.

right row: wn burnt sienna; wn burnt umber; qor nickel azo yellow; wn cadmium yellow light; wn cadmium yellow deep; wn cadmium red deep; blick permanent alizarin; wn perylene maroon

*Qor [core] are a new w/c by Golden using a synthetic binder.  There’s a bit of buzz about them but no real longterm feedback, so i’m trying two tubes.  Of note is supposed to be their lack of granularity and drying to a truer color.  We’ll see.  snake oil will out.

Let’s get to it!