How to use the Princeton Catalyst wedges & blades

Here are my Princeton Catalyst Blades and Wedges, I often bring these when i am working on mixed media artworks that have loads of thick textures.
Quite often they get mistaken for cooking utensils so its a fun talking point :)

Impasto is a painting technique where the paint is laid on really thickly in a section or over the whole canvas. You can buy "Impasto" medium that you mix with acrylic paint to help you to create the Impasto style on your artwork. I have found my variations with the impasto medium so it helps to try a couple if you like to create in this way. You can also make your own. The impasto medium can be applied with or without mixing it to paint. There is no right or wrong way of using it, here is one of the ways I like to use it.

When creating a thick Impasto style these blades and wedges allow you to create many different effects and once I started using them I don't want to go back.

The nice about using these tools is the big handle that is made like a brush it feels smooth and wonderful and easy to handle. The wedges are molded to fit easily in your hand so they aren't difficult to hold and use.
The really great thing is the soft but firm silicone used for the wedges & blades. Its firm enough to hold the paint but pliable enough to bend slightly as your moving it around. Which feels much better than a really hard skewer or piece of plastic that i have used in other applications.'

 

The different variety in the edges of these creates some really interesting effects that can be quite difficult to do otherwise. I especially love the one which as all the little spokes on it. I have used that multiple times in various works. The pic left is of a finished artwork that i used these all over to create a interesting texture with the paint.
For this first pic i want to have a really thick edge of the impasto, so this tool is one of my favourites to do that.

The wedge is great for creating a smooth surface

These last two create some really great different textures. Best thing to do is experiment and with the impasto i doesn't dry straight away so you can just wipe it flat and start again.
Clean up is really easy with these guys i mostly just wipe mine off, and then every now and then i give them a really good clean and bring them up sparkling new. I read on their website you can use them in baking and also put them in the dishwasher if you want to  :)

Hope you enjoyed this one :) - Belinda

V2.0 - Coloured Chaos Glasses with Pebeo Vitrea Paint

Chaos Glasses 2.0!

By Natalie Wyatt 

Made with "Pebeo Vitrea 160 Glass Paint".

 

Hi all!

 For my very first post here at Crafty Crusaders, I delivered a tutorial on how to create these colourful glasses using the Pebeo Vitrea 160 paints. 

Well, the thought came back to me when we were having a bake-stall at my University to raise money for our graduate show, so instead of baking cookies and cupcakes, I baked glasses!

I based them off my original design (pictured below), but this time I tried them out with some new colour combinations!

It was a great success and I sold them all! I filled them lollies, chocolates and a bouncy ball for fun!

There's two types of Pebeo Vitrea paints: Glossy and Frosted.

Glossy: is transparent, so they work like a stained glass effect.

Frosted: is transparent/opaque, so you can see through it partially.

These paints are not to be confused with Pebeo Vitrail paints, which are used for decorative purposes. Instead, the Vitrea range are intended to be used on materials which may be used for human consumption.

 

But before I show them to you, I'll do a refresher on how to make them:

If you saw my original tutorial, you can skip ahead to the next part where I show you my new designs.

 

____________________________

 

 What you will need:

• Pebeo Vitrea 160 Glass Paints (Glossy or Frosted depending on the look you want to achieve)
• Wales Old Fashion Glasses (Or any other preference)*
• 1 x Small Paintbrush (I used Princeton Art & Brush Co. Golden Taklon Synthetic Hair #4 Round)
• 1 x Spatula (I used Catalyst by Princeton)
• A cup filled with water (To rinse your brush)
• Scrap paper to cover work-bench.
• Tissues to blot the wet paint-brushes.

* I bought my glasses from Kmart, they came as a pack of 6 and were $6!

 I used Pepper Red, Sun Yellow and Turquoise Vitrea 160 paints for this example. You may use other colours as desired, however the three selected colours are the basic Primary colours which mix to make all other secondary colours like green, orange and purple.

 First begin by dipping your paintbrush into the paints and loading it rather heavily onto the glass in a small line. Make sure you wash in the cup of water and dry your brush on the tissues between each colour so you don't mix the paints in the pots.

 Then, using the spatula tip, drag the spatula across the lines starting at the red and smoothing past the blue to create a stroke of mixed colour.

 You will then notice on your spatula residue from the smudged paint. Do not wash this off!

Using the side of the spatula with paint, again swipe the spatula across the glass in a different direction. This will create a new colour stroke.

 Repeat the same process in different areas until you have run out of paint on the spatula. You may like to smudge the paint already on the glass to create new strokes.

 Repeat the first steps again by applying the three colours using the paintbrush onto the glass. You don't have to necessarily use lines or have any sort of order! All we want is the colours to be close enough to blend. For example, in the above shot, I used dots of paint as well as lines.

 Take the spatula again and smudge the paint to create the colour strokes on the glass. 

I painted my glass in an ascending fashion so the colour would start at the bottom of the glass and wrap around to the top.

When you are happy with your design, put it aside and allow to dry.

I would recommend leaving them to dry for 24 hours, so they can dry all the way through, because if you bake them while the paint is still partially wet, you will get giant paint bubbles! Trust me... XD

 You can now place it on a tray and bake it in a conventional oven on 160 degrees for 40 minutes. (Normal oven function is fine)

Then remove your glass from the tray and allow to cool.

The baking process deepens the colours and helps them set so your glass is now ready to use and is dishwasher and microwave safe!

____________________________

 

 

Now, here are the new versions I have made! 

Here are some group shots and below I'll explain which colours I used for each.

 

 #1

Pebeo Vitrea  

Pimento Red (Glossy)

Turquoise (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

This was very similar to the earlier ones I made!

  #2

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Pepper Red (Glossy)

Lemon (Frosted)

Pink (Frosted)

A mix of frosted and glossy paints.

   #3

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Oriental Green (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

Pimento Red (Glossy)

Turquoise (Glossy

   #4

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

Oriental Green (Glossy)

Pimento Red (Glosssy)

Be careful not to use too much paint on your glasses because you might find that it begins to collect and create drip marks. Generally you can just stroke the paint to flatten these.

    #5

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Oriental Green (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

Pimento Red (Glossy)

Turquoise (Glossy

 

This one didn't turn out so well because I over blended the colours with the spatula. Try and keep the spatula blending as minimal as possible.

 

   #6

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Pink (Frosted)

Azure (Frosted)

 

  #7

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Azure (Frosted)

Pink (Frosted)

Lemon (Frosted)

Aniseed Green (Frosted)

 

This was probably my least favourite as I over blended the colours and got this dirty pink/purple colour, so I learned that trying to keep the number of colours to a minimum is more effective... in my opinion! You make prefer the look! 

  #8

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Pimento Red (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

This created a real firey effect.

 

  #9

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Oriental Green (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

I really liked the two colours, it created a simple, yet lovely effect!

   #10

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Pimento Red (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

Turquoise (Glossy)

 

For this glass I started off with just the blue and red and then added yellow right at the end.

 

   #11

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Oriental Green (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

Turquoise (Glossy)

This was mainly the blue and green with accents of yellow.

 

  #12

Pebeo Vitrea 160 

Oriental Green (Glossy)

Sun Yellow (Glossy)

Turquoise (Glossy)

This was mainly the green and yellow with a bit of blue. 

Which one was your favourite?

Thanks for reading!

~

Find us on Facebook:

Crafty Crusaders:

Pebeo Australia:

Canson Australia:

Mepxy Markers:

Instagram: @mepxymarkers

_________________________

Please send us your work or anything that you create! Thanks for watching!

 

Natalie Wyatt

Natalie's Facebook Page

Canson Paper and Schmincke Watercolour Sketches!

Schmincke, Canson, Princeton!

Hi all!

Unfortunately I was a bit hard-pressed for time in delivering this tutorial because I am under the pump with my final semester at University, so I will hopefully deliver another tutorial on drawing proportions very soon. However, in the meanwhile, I thought I could share with you some of the paintings and sketches I have created using Canson papers and Schmincke Horadam Aquarell Watercolour Paints.

I bought these gorgeous paints a while back and have fallen in love with watercolour all over again. I bought a set of 24 1/2 pans and have had so much fun with them.

The Schmincke watercolours have such a strong pigment and make painting and using the paints so much easier. You know those paints that you've had in the past where you have laden your brush with paint, only to find within a few strokes it's practically all gone? This is the exception, I remember when I first tried them and I touched my wet brush ever so lightly onto the paint and then used it and the colour was amazing! It also lasted so long and this works out in your favor, for not only does it save time and makes working more efficient, but you end up using much less paint because you don't need so much onto your brush.

Tip: Wet the paint brush, rather than wetting the pan, this way you can keep your paints much cleaner.

 Here are some examples of the more involved paintings I've done using these paints:

Truth

 

 Life

 Way

Tip: When building up a painting like this in layers, start with a wash that covers your whole background, so you aren't left with noticeable white spaces.

 The Glass Slipper

Tip: I built this painting up from the lightest colours to the darkest.

A Psychedelic Forrest

~

This is mainly what I use in conjunction with the Schmincke Paints:

Canson Watercolour Paper: This one is a Medium, 185 gsm. I use both the A3 and A4 sizes. I have been using this paper since I started painting when I was 14, I used to save up my pocket money for buying pads of paper!

Princeton brushes, I have a number of sets that I've used which work really well and are affordable too!

Now here is a bit more about the paints:

You receive this super cute colour testing page where you can use your colours and then refer back to it when selecting colours.

The box mine came in, I nursed it preciously home.

Inside the box!

This is what my paints look like now after the dozens of paintings I've used them for!

It appears I am fond of the green colour.

Tip: If you want to keep reusing the same colour mix that you've created, mix the colours on either a plastic or metal surface (like this one) so it doesn't dry so quickly and can very easily be re-hydrated. If you use paper, it just absorbs the paint and dries out super easily. Especially with the pan sets opposed to the tubes of paint.

Some more sketches:

This really shows off the vibrancy of the paints.

 You can see a bit of the bleed effect in the tulips where I overlapped the red onto the yellow.

 This really shows off the nature of the paint. I just wet a part of the paper and transferred paint into the patch and then nudged it with the brush.

 Using a slightly dry-brush technique to achieve this textures.

Tip: Using a brush with a flat/square tip can give you these beautiful marks shown above. Simply wet the brush but then only touch the very tip with the paint and drag it in short succession.

 This was actually the very first thing I painted with the watercolours as a test, was a lot of fun!

Mixing the paint with other mediums.

I hope you have learned a little and hopefully been inspired!

~

Find us on Facebook:

Crafty Crusaders:

Pebeo Australia:

Canson Australia:

Mepxy Markers:

Instagram: @mepxymarkers

_________________________

Please send us your work or anything that you create! Thanks for watching!

 

Natalie Wyatt

Natalie's Facebook Page