G&B Blog

A standard part of caring for your brushes is mending them when the inevitable accident does happen.  When a brush is distractedly left in a water cup (horror!), maybe one wiggles out of place while traveling and dries in a funny shape, maybe there is a rogue bristle or two.  This is the kind of damage that is easily fixable with Brush Shaper. 

The tips of your watercolor brushes should be cared for as if they are sacred.  After all, your brush tip is the contact point between the internal and external worlds.  Think of a brush with a damaged tip as working with a dull knife.  However, while there are many care steps for brushes, there is one that is seldom-mentioned and often overlooked.

Green Earth, also more commonly known as Terre Vert, is in most paint lines, though it is one of the most commonly overlooked (and underrated) colors.

Losing a favorite art supply or tool is the worst.  Marking them is an easy solution that can also be a creative customization that makes your art supplies feel more "yours".  I'll share several different methods, and a few tips to help avoid frustration (and sticky residue).

There are many different ways to swatch out your colors.  In this post, I am going to go over how to combine a few of those swatches into what I call a Combination Swatch.  It contains a lot of information about each color, and is wonderful fun to create.  We will cover supplies, how to paint this type of swatch, and what information it will reveal to you.  A free downloadable template is also included!

This is the year to take back our time.  No one has enough of it, yet it is being taken from us each time we look at our screens - whether television, monitor, laptop, tablet, or phone.  

I am starting to feel a little like Frodo when he puts on the ring.  When I pick up my phone it is eery how I just disappear, and I see other people do it too.

Our minds and our time are precious, and time is one of the few things that cannot be fabricated or purchased as a commodity.  Are what we are doing with them making us happy?

 

Enamel is widely considered one of the very best surfaces on which to mix watercolors, however, when it is brand spanking new it can cause them to bead like crazy.  Enamel breaks in beautifully over time with use.  In this post I explain how to break in or prime new enamel mixing areas in a few easy steps.

The world of fountain pens is quite a rabbit hole, and purchasing one can seem overwhelming and intimidating.  There are a lot of options, a huge range of cost and quality, and oh... then there are all of the inks.  In this post I am specifically going to talk about choosing and using fountain pens with waterproof ink for watercolor painting.