I love painting florals, but there HAS to be something I can do with them other than postcards, you know? Fortunately, this DIY is super-easy and you can customize it any way you want!
YOU WILL NEED:
1. A clear jelly phone case with a template. A quick google search will bring up looooads of options for your phone model. Or visit your nearest mall for it. Mine was basically a clear jelly case with a glittery piece of paper underneath, so it came in two parts. I used that glittery paper as my trace-around template.
2. Scissors for cutting out big areas of paper
3. An exacto knife for cutting out the smaller camera and speaker holes in the paper
4. Tools you need to create your design. I made two designs for the same jelly case. One with stickers, and another with my floral painting. So in my situation, stickers and watercolor where what I needed. Feel free to use whatever you like though!
On a side note, how amazing are these stickers from Print Ta!? They’re all original Davao-made art and I wish I had a ton of money to buy more prints.
*****HOW TO:
1. First take your template and trace around it, making sure to include the camera and speaker holes.
2. Cut everything out.
Use the exacto knife to carefully cut out any holes in the middle of the template.
Make as many templates as you like! I made two.
3. Design/Paint your template.
Here I am trying to figure out where to place my stickers under the jelly case.
In the case of the watercolor template, I painted everything first before cutting out the speaker and camera holes, just so I could paint freely without worrying about the gaps.
Here are my two finished templates together, along with the original glittery one.
4. Once done, assemble your case and template back together!
You want to make sure there aren’t any excess pieces of paper peeking through the holes, so it’s good to assemble it and afterwards trim with the exacto knife if necessary.
5. Wear your spiffy new ultra-custom phone case with pride.
I got a lot of compliments from my girl friends when they saw my phone case. They even thought I bought it!
There were really surprised when I took my case apart and showed them that I painted it myself.
I think this is a really easy, fuss-free way to insert a little creativity and art into your daily routine. :)
Hope you enjoyed this DIY! Do let me know if you try it.
DIY Purple Shampoo and Toning Conditioner For Bleached and Dyed Hair
Hey there! If you have bleached and dyed hair, especially pastel-colored lilac hair like mine, then girl you know the struggle to keep it that way. It is legit hard to keep up with roots, brassiness, and color vibrance, but hey, they don’t call us dyehards for nothing, right?
So anyway, this post is about how I make my own DIY Purple Shampoo, because that’s one way I ensure that my hair remains a cool tone and I don’t have to deal with brassiness.
Seriously, brassiness is not cute. It can make even the prettiest blue look lumot-green, or the cutest lavender look dull and patchy. After I use my toning shampoo, I then use my toning conditioner, because whenever I shampoo my hair, even if it’s with a purple shampoo, it is guaranteed that the color will be patchier than before I shampooed it. It’s because shampooing pulls out color even as you try to deposit more with a colored shampoo. Toning conditioners help somewhat with that.
Toning shampoos and conditioners are sold online and by hair-dye shops and are easy to find, really. But since I’m a cheapskate, I’ve been making my own toners since time immemorial (more like 2011). In this post, I’ll share what I use!
Enter these 4 items!
DIY PURPLE SHAMPOO:
1.)YOUR SHAMPOO BASE: Any shampoo (when I want to clarify or fade my hair, I use dandruff shampoo)
2.) YOUR TONING PIGMENT: Here it’s Directions Neon Blue (because I want my toning color to be more cool-toned, I choose a blue-violet like Neon Blue. Use Directions Violet if you want a more neutral violet!)
DIY TONING CONDITIONER:
3).YOUR CONDITIONING BASE: Any conditioner works. If you wanna be fancy, sulfate-free ones are nice, but I like to try new products and this week it was Pantene’s 3-minute miracle.
4.) YOUR TONING PIGMENT: Here I’m using Directions Neon Blue and adding in the TINIEST bit of Directions Flamingo to give my hair after shampooing a more lilac tone.
You may ask, why didn’t you just add Flamingo to the shampoo? Well, it’s because shampooing is when I address my BASE HAIR (the bleached part underneath the color), and conditioning is when I address my HAIR COLOR (the dye I put on top of my base). It just keeps it simple and fuss free for me when I think of it like that. :)
When you have all your materials ready it helps to have containers ready to mix them in and store for later use, so I am also using some old, empty Directions tubs.
Here’s a game-changing tip for applying toning shampoo: APPLY IT DRY.
I’ll say that again because it’s just that important: APPLY YOUR TONING SHAMPOO ON DRY HAIR.
It’s important to apply it on dry hair because once your hair is wet you will cut the absorption of color into your hair by a significant amount and you lose the benefits of the toning shampoo. But if you apply it dry, the toning color has time to soak into your dry hair first. Here I am applying it to my head.
Once your entire head is covered, add water and lather away! I like to keep the shampoo sudsing on top of my head while I soap up the rest of my body in the shower, so that it has time to soak in. Then I rinse it all off.
TIME FOR TONING CONDITIONER:
I like to dry my hair so that it is not dripping wet when I apply my conditioner, and I just cover my entire head in the conditioner and wait 5 minutes and then rinse again. If I want to deep condition, I’ll wait 15-30 minutes before rinsing.
Finished! I really loved this lavender color because it was the tone and hue I wanted to achieve.
PS. So what if I get tired of the above color and I want to make my hair lean towards a warmer violet? I use a warmer toning conditioner (with a warmer pink or a stronger dose of Flamingo to make it lean to the hue I want). So a few washes later I got this:
Just keep in mind that when you put warm colors in your hair, you are helping your brassy base stay brassy, but I was ready to leave my cool lavender hair and move on to a different color at this point.
I have to say, warm purple hair really works well with brown lipstick! Lol.
Hope this helped, fellow dyehards. Happy hair adventures!
Going Lavender from Red Hair! (DIY Purple Shampoo and No Bleaching)
This isn’t a tutorial, but more like an update, because I don’t have enough pictures to make it a how-to. But hopefully I have enough pictures so you can get the gist of what I did to get my hair light enough for lavender!
In my previous post I basically bleached virgin black hair once and threw a pot of Directions Fire on my head to get this:
I enjoyed having this ridiculous bright red hair for about a week, after which I threw on a diluted mix of Directions Tulip over it to make it lean more dark raspberry. Which it did! The new hair color was pinky red with hints of mauve in it and I really liked it!
It reminded me of this these pinterest photos that I’ve been seeing around forever but I never could quite get the right shade.
Turns out all I needed to do was mix diluted Tulip with a bit of Neon Blue and throw it on top of a red base. ANYWAY. I let this color hang around for a while, I even played a few gigs with this hair color. I eventually had to get used to random people yelling “Hoy, Paramore!” at me, though. :|
My fellow campers and I at the Mindanao Elements Camper’s Night. I’m the small pale one with the pink head. :|
The tulip would wash off with each shower and my hair would go back to its previous red-orange state, so eventually got tired of touching up and did a no-bleach fading treatment (the recipe for which is here ).
Right after my fading treatment I ended up with a brassy peach-blonde and a few orangey tips. I was really happy with how much color left my hair after one fading treatment, because the day before my hair was really pink!
Basically a japayuki now T_T
I mixed my own purple shampoo (I’ll do a separate post on how to make your own purple shampoo) based on my specific hair color. I decided that Neon Blue (which is blue violet) was the color I needed to neutralize my hair.
Which gave me this right after my first fading treatment and consequent purple shampoo session: A LOT OF MY HAIR TURNED SILVER!
Anyway, I threw on diluted Directions Neon Blue over the whole thing even though I still had brassy patches here and there. I was careful not to oversaturate my conditioner with the dye. I made it as light as I could get away with and then did a strand test to see if it would take on my hair. I could always redye darker, but I couldn’t redye lighter! I initially tried Directions Silver and it did absolutely nothing, which mean my hair was still too brassy for it. So I did a custom mix of Neon Blue and conditioner to make a slightly darker but still very pastel lavender shade.
This is what I got!
With The Boy, Miko, and Kat, who were in Davao for a kendo tournament. Yes, das right. She has white hair! If you haven’t checked out Kat’s work yet via @denimcatfish, you should because her OC Haliya has hair just like this. That and a lot of other awesome art (including Korrasami fanart).
These photos are from my friend @irateves‘s awesome wedding reception! <3
It’s not obvious here but Ira has blue hair done up in a bun so it’s business up front, party in the back!
And this is the latest photo of my hair, which is after several washes and is starting to turn more gray. I’ve also been adding a tiny bit of Directions Flamingo Pink in my conditioner to make it lean more lilac. :)
Hallo! So I dyed my hair Fire red for a video shoot and it’s done! That video is here:
MUA: Corine Lademora
Video & Editing: Jad Montenegro
Featuring Siobhan, Ira, Danielle, Angie, Janina and Jad.
It was a vlog-type video that I really enjoyed shooting. There was really no pressure because everyone was just being themselves and having fun. We would have preferred to have more variation in the hair colors, but it turns out everyone just had warm colors at the time this shoot happened! (Except Ira, who had blue on, and Angie who had fading plum, everyone was either pink, purple or red, lol). The girls featured in this vid are some of the customers that order dyes from Berbiedolls regularly.
Every woman in this video is beautiful. Not because of their hair color, which is also pretty bomb, but because they are brave enough to express themselves and have fun in ways that defy the stereotypical standards of beauty. That's why I agreed to shoot this entire video: DIY hair color is a brave thing to do, and I salute those who do it. Not to belittle those who want to change their hair but aren't allowed by their schools or workplace: you are still beautiful, and someday I hope the world becomes a less restrictive place for everyone. Live a colorful life no matter what your wardrobe looks like
You can find Berbiedolls’ facebook page here.
Hair, Currently: Directions Fire and Elgon Decolor Anti-Yellow Blueberry Bleach from Italy
A few days ago Berbiedolls sent me a new bleach and a bunch of dyes to try out!
I was AMAZED at how fast this bleach worked. It had a sticky meringue consistency similar to Loreal’s Quick Blue so I became an instant fan!
It also emulsified really rapidly, though, so I had to apply it as fast as I could! When it was lifting underneath a plastic bag, I couldn’t help but notice how hot it got on my scalp. The other bleaches I’ve used were uncomfortably warm at best, but this bleach got legit hot. That was a little worrisome to me, but it never got to a point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. When the heat dissipated, it also stopped most of the major lightening.
Long story short, this is the fastest bleach I have ever used. It is slightly faster than Loreal Quick Blue, but honestly it is hard to tell the difference between their results. When mixed with oxidizer, Decolor Blueberry bleach is purple and Quick blue is well, blue. I do notice that the Elgon bleach lifted quite a lot from the roots compared to the Loreal Quick Blue.
Using Elgon Decolor Bleach (which seems to be an Italian brand?) I bleached virgin black hair and it got me 7 levels lighter in about 30 minutes. After trying on some pretty cruddy bleaches (hi Bremod and china-china bleaches), results like that are nothing short of heaven-sent imho.
LEFT half: Black virgin hair after only one bleaching session.
RIGHT HALF: recently applied Directions Fire full strength
The next day I had a Berbiedolls video shoot and I was too lazy to bleach more than once, so I wanted a color that would take full advantage of the neon yellow/orange you inevitably get with a single bleaching.
Enter Directions Fire.
The brassy base actually helps make this orange-based red even more fiery. So if you’re looking for a color that doesn’t require multiple bleaching, Fire is one of those forgiving pigmented dyes that has incredible coverage. It can be put right on top of a first bleaching. Similar holy-grail type colors I’ve tried are Cerise, Rose Red, and a lot of the dark red/pink colors in the Directions range.
When I was applying Directions Fire it was a little unnerving because it looks like bright red congealing blood in the tub! Halfway through dye application I looked like Halloween went very, very wrong for me. :/
After covering my entire head of thick chest-length hair, I used up about 3/4 of the entire tub. This dye sure goes a long way. If I had diluted it the way I usually do with conditioner, I’m sure this tub would have lasted me at least 4-5 applications.
Directions Fire is a true red with no pink undertones. So it works really well with a yellowish base, but take note if your hair is very yellow like mine, it’ll take on a more orange-red tinge. On perfectly white hair, this would be a balanced medium red.
Here’s a screencap of the video shoot:
And a photo of me scarfing down Carbonara by @dzaneena before we started. I’d only had 2 hours of sleep!
On my ipad camera, sometimes it takes on a more raspberry tone:
And sometimes the orange takes over.
This is a gorgeous, bright, in-your-face color that is sure to turn heads. I dyed my hair this color for the shoot and it looked amazing in on video, but I ended up toning it down a few days later as I prefer cooler tones and it caused too much of a commotion every time I went to the mall lol. I had so much fun wearing it, though. Let me know if you give this color a try!
@lilcheeb said: hallo ^^ I was wondering if you had any tips on improving with watercolors? You're one of my biggest inspirations and the reason I picked up the gansai tambi 36 set also!! I also have the sakura koi and a bunch of Holbein tube paints if that'd effect your answer. thank you so much for your time! :]
Hi! Thank you, glad that I'm able to inspire you! And yay you won't regret the Gansai Tambi. It's a great starter set.
Definitely one of the best tips is to work with a limited palette, to reduce your focus from colors to actual tonal value. That helps with your spatial understanding, which in turn helps with composition, which in turn helps with making pieces that feel more satisfying and complete. :) try using only 2-3 colors at a time. When you get to know your colors really well by limiting their number, you become so confident that you don't hesitate when you paint anymore, you just do it automatically.
Another tip I have is to spend more time on composition than the details. It's fun to get lost in the tiny lines, but in the end, the way it's put together is what will make the biggest impact. Good luck! :)
Anonymous said: I want a free app that let's me create a life like image of a nude babe
WELP I WANT AN APP THAT MAKES BACON APPEAR WHEN I BLINK TWICE
stars-and-periwinkles said: Hey~ I'm a big kpop fan and I really wanna try dyeing my hair like my kpop idols. I've been all over the internet, trying to find tutorials and I just found out about your blog. I want to dye my hair dark pink but I'm too afraid to bleach it and I don't want to go to a salon. (I have virgin hair) Is it possible to dye my hair dark pink without bleaching? If so, what shade should I buy to get the color that I want? I want something like Irene's(Red Velvet member) hair for Happiness promotions.
Hi! Dark pink is actually a really forgiving color. However, if you have dark hair, like literally black, you won’t get much aside from a pink “sheen“ when sunlight or other direct light hits your hair. To get some semblance of color you really need to bleach at least once. Once bleached, you can try Cerise or Flamingo Pink for really strong, vibrant and forgiving pinks. Rose Red or Tulip also cover well if you want a warmer, darker color.
jinxholly said: Hey Jad, a few months ago I dyed my hair different shades of turquoise and blue, but my top blue layer has turned slightly green. Is there a way to get it back to bright blue without bleaching it?
Hi! Yes. Just put a diluted blue dye and conditioner mix over the green bits. It turned green because the blue has washed off, and replenishing the blue it should restore the color. Most people mix the remainder of their initial dye into some conditioner and top up their color every time they shower in order to maintain it.
Anonymous said: What are your thoughts about Deadpool [the movie]?
Gosh, I haven’t watched it. I think I was busy during the weeks it was showing. But if I end up finding a DVD of it i’ll edit this post with my review.
victoriaunso said: Hi ms. Jad can you pls suggest any brand of white conditioner for diluting semi permanent hair dyes? Im currently using the one from HBC but my tatay hates the way it smells.. Thank you!
I totally just use the cheapest conditioner I can find. Like I used to use Creamsilk Damage Repair conditioner but now I use Daily Defense Argan oil or Morroccan Oil which is P99 at Watson’s.
Anonymous said: Hi! I just discovered your amazing, informative blog. I was just wondering if you would consider doing a kuretake gansai tambi and peerless comparison? Pros and cons for each and how they work. I love watercolour myself and want to reach for either one of those but I don't know which is better. Thanks!
Hi! I already did a Peerless review and in that review I compared it to Sakura Koi which is also a more traditional type paint like the KGT. Personally I found the Peerless super interesting, but I always reach for my traditional paints. It really depends on your painting style, too. I like a more subdued look and the Peerless are MEGA BRIGHT LOL. So I mean if you like the opposite then the Peerless are really convenient and perfect for that style. They’re not lightfast though. I like my KGT better than the Peerless but it’s purely a matter of preference. I also mentioned in my review that the flat pieces of card were kind of hard to get used to because I expect paint to be sticky and in cake form. :D However I appreciate that I can bring them in my pocket with a waterbrush and that’s all I need to get started journaling in public.
yuhekalhello there .. I really loved your review on the KGT and Sakura watercolours .. aside question D: .. I want to buy a friend of mine the Sakura watercolours-she uses van gogh watercolours- .. so will it be good gift? another question-sorry :$ - .. which waterbrush is better? the Kuretake or the Pentel ? or the Sakura?
Hi! If she's used to Van Gogh she might not like the Sakura because they will be chalkier. But the KGT are buttery and creamy and will behave more like artist grade paints. Van Gogh is a high quality student grade so she will appreciate something closer to it. :) As for waterbrushes, I think the Pentel Aquash is slightly better quality, but I use the Kuretake and I like it just fine. So I think the difference might be marginal at best.:)
burningbridgesnotmemoriesHi. Between prang and sakura koi, which has a brighter/more luminous effect?
jadmontenegroPrang is more transparent, Sakura is more fluorescent. :) Both can be bright, but behave differently. Sakura Koi behaves more like inks.
burningbridgesnotmemoriesThank you. I just had my koi this week and it's amazing as everyone said. :) one problem though is that the palette was easily stained by the blue and yellow colors and I can't seem to wash it off even with soap. I'm a bit worried that I might see my color mixtures differently because of the stain underneath. Do you know of a way that I can rub them off?
You can try alcohol or nail polish remover? But really, staining is a common occurrence when you use a plastic palette... sort of unavoidable, really :( Mine is also stained like crazy so I use a small ceramic plate to do all my mixing in. Ceramic is the best surface for mixing.
jaleelyHi i'm looking at your hair timeline, working around the color wheel. I'm going to start dying pigments into my hair and this is an awesome results page!! Some of your pictures aren't showing though :( If it's not too much trouble, can you refresh it? Your information is sooo good and helpful!! I myself have bleached yellow/blonde underneith, faded red/brown, with blonde highlights, and brown roots. So i'm imagining a really interesting dye job! I was going to go with paul mitchell violet red, then pm color shots violet, and finally parvana violet, following this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1kwKV1TVvM but i realized that doing this may result in darkening my blonde. So i was thinking just go straight for the violet. What do you think? What's the best way to make the color last? You're awesome and if you can find time to respond you'd be the MOST awesome ever! Thank you :)
Hi! I’ve tried to edit that page over and over and I don’t know, something about the code causes some of the photos to not show up no matter how many times I try to reupload them! So frustrating, tumblr, Y U DO DIS? Anyhoo. Darker colors can really look off if it doesn’t match all the values of the other dyes you’re using. So... if in doubt, dilute a dark color until it sort of matches the “lightness or darkness” of the base. I’m finding it a bit hard to imagine your situation since you have a multicolored base and you also plan to put multiple colors over it. However, looking at the video, it looks like she has dark roots and is using a dark color over them, then combing it through, and then for lighter midlengths she is using the lighter violets on them. In your case, you might want to try doing the light colors first, so you can see if you like it, and you still have a chance to make it darker if you don’t. If you do it the other way around (dark first, lighter later), you won’t get a chance to fix a dark color and you’ll be stuck with it.
sorryiloveyoustayHello! It's my first time reading your blog and I've read some of your posts when I saw your picture with minty turquoise and dusty peach and I wonder if you made any blogpost about it? Thank you!!
Hi, I think I haven't blogged about it. It's seriously just faded Turquoise on top and diluted Cerise underneath. All the pink at the bottom eventually washed off in like 3 months and because my base was yellowy it turned out peachy. :D
Hello fellow hair crazies. A few weeks ago, Katia of DIY Hair PH (@diyhairph on instagram and facebook) sent me two products from her shop to try out and give my honest review on. She sent me :
1) a packet of Loreal Quick Blue Extra Strength Bleach and a corresponding 12% bottle of developer
2) A T18 Color Charm Wella Toner and a corresponding 6% bottle of developer.
I will be reviewing the bleach in this post! :)
I have personally become really curious about Loreal’s Quick Blue bleach because I see it ALL. THE. TIME in youtube videos, but it’s not that accessible here in the Philippines. I stand by my opinion that bleaches are pretty much all made up of horrible chemicals and they will damage your hair more ore less the same way, there’s just minor differences in their texture, smell (maybe), or how fast they lift. In fact, you can predict how bleach will affect your hair no matter what brand it is. It’s like comparing which brand of rubbing alcohol is better at drying your hands out or which nail polish remover can remove stains faster...they’re all pretty much the same and manufacturers can just “personalize” their products to appeal to different people.
That all said, though, my verdict is that I really like Loreal Quick Blue! I was kind of not expecting it to work better than my previous favorite bleach (HBC Exclusive’s bleach), but to my surprise, it DID seem to lift faster, smell better, and have a sort of stickier texture than my previous bleach.
My favorite part about this bleach is the texture. My old bleach, even though it was quite effective, had a gritty, chalky texture after mixing it with developer, and it stayed kind of runny even after it was supposed to get creamy. The problem with a runny bleach is that when you apply it to your hair, you’re never quite sure if that part of your hair is properly covered or not, so sometimes you get patchy results if you’re careless and lazy and just glop it on. I guess my old bleach required more effort and constant checking to make sure it covered everything.
This new bleach, though, has a more meringue-like texture, a bit sticky, and a bit more foamy, which I found helped a lot in applying to my hair and covering more ground. It may also be a combination of the developer DIY HAIR PH sent me, which I have not tried before. If you’ve bleached before, you know that ONLY the parts of your hair visibly covered in bleach actually lighten. Even if you’ve run the bleach through that part of your hair, if it’s not visibly covered by the bleach then it will not lighten. The slightly more sticky Loreal bleach helped a lot in that area.
I also left it on for a shorter time than my old bleach (30 min), and it gave me more or less the same results.
Here is a photo of my hair after I washed it off. Take note that my hair has grown out since I dyed it, so I have black roots but very light midlengths and tips. My tips went white, and my roots went a very predictable orange and yellow.
So, obviously, it’s not a magic bleach. It will lift quite a lot from very black hair like mine, but it definitely will not give you white in one session. It will however take a little less time to lift and make your application a bit easier.
I appreciated that about this bleach a lot, because it saved me a bit of time and I was able to apply Directions Violet right away (my next blog post will be about that color and why I am in love with it).
In conclusion, I love this bleach and will probably stock up for when I want to bleach again.
If you want to purchase this bleach, you can visit @diyhairph. :D
Visit this blog again for the Wella T18 review in a couple of weeks!
Hey everyone! Sorry about the lack of updates on here. I have watercolor reviews, bleach reviews, hair dye articles and reader mail answer posts to wade through!
I guess I’ve just been pretty busy, because my friend April and I have put together a watercolor workshop! Yay!
April is a good friend of mine from our Waterkulto sessions. This lady travels a lot for her art, and handmade crafts are her passion, so I thought she would be the perfect person to partner up with for this workshop.
Her shop, Artisan Paperie, is going to be providing the materials, including the awesome Kuretake Transparent Watercolor Palette, paper, brush, a 10% off coupon on all Artisan Paperie products, printed module and snacks at April’s cafe Yellow Hauz! Plus the workshop is 5 hours, so isn’t that a great deal? :D
Everyone knows I’m a big fan of the Kuretake Gansai Tambi set, and I thought the Kuretake Zig Transparent Palette would be a cheaper alternative without sacrificing quality. And I was right.
I was so surprised at the natural florals I was able to make with this set. Gorgeous colors, right?
I worked really hard on my module to make it comprehensive and jam-packed with good tips and information, plus I have plenty of cool exercises lined up for everyone.
And here are some examples of my painted florals!
(I’ll be teaching how to make the more impressionistic flowers at the top)
It’s easy to fill up an entire page with these simple bouquets :)
There are so many infinite ways to put flowers and leaves and fruits and colors together, how can anyone get bored with florals? I don’t think I ever will.
Postcards are my favorite size for painting anything, including portraits. But for some reason, florals look especially charming on them.
If you think you’d like to learn how I do them, and you’re in Davao, sign up for our workshop. I love watercolor because it’s how I de-stress and clear my head when I’m worried or anxious or generally just need a break. If you feel like you need a relaxing activity, why not try watercolor? :)
You can sign up for the workshop here. To read April’s blog about the workshop, click here. :)
I’m not sure why I haven’t reviewed one of my favorite artist grade paints yet, but I think it’s because the brand speaks for itself. Winsor and Newton’s professional paints have definitely spoiled me. Because it was the first artist grade brand I ever worked with, it made me critical of other artist grade paints that I purchase, because it is difficult to beat the high standard that W&N sets.
In this post I will mostly just use photos of the travel set I got because it is what I started with. I have since added tubes I like to my set. It’s called the Winsor and Newton Professional Compact Field Box. The colors in each edition may differ, but I will list down the ones I have below.
I purchased my initial Winsor and Newton Professional set of 14 pans from Morning Light Art Shop and Gallery, upon special request.
They didn’t have it in stock before, but because they were a W&N reseller, they agreed to stock a few of the field kits. They also sell the 15ML tubes of Winsor and Newton Professional, which is a lifesaver because I would much rather pick which colors I want by the tube, than buy 48 tiny half pans where 80% of the pre-chosen colors will get ignored and dusty. This set is a such a good starter because it’s all single pigments (except Sap Green and Raw Sienna) and has red and cool variations of the primary triad (blue red yellow):
WARM : Winsor Yellow PY154
COOL: Lemon Yellow PY53
WARM : Winsor Red PR254
COOL: Permanent Alizarin Crimson PR206
WARM: French Ultramarine PB29
COOL: Winsor Blue Green Shade (Phthalo Blue) PB15
Winsor Violet (Dioxazine) PV23
Viridian PG18
Sap Green PG36,PY110
Yellow Ochre PY43
Raw Sienna PY42,PR101
Burnt Sienna PR101
Chinese White
Ivory Black
They are lightfast, reliable, use mostly single pigments, and have excellent color documentation on their websites. They also provide a complete and informational brochure in their packaging. It’s probably because the Philippines is always humid and hot, but their cakes are also slightly moist and sticky to me (except Viridian, which hardened to a rock) which means it’s easy to pick up the color with my brush.
I think many people try other brands because they want to explore what else is out there, and it’s just human nature to want something other than what is readily and abundantly available, even if that particular brand is really, really good to begin with. And I’m no exception. For example, I also like Holbein and Daniel Smith very much (reviews on those coming soon).
However, a lot of people tend to say “oh, this is much better than that famous brand” mostly from a habit of wanting to find something to dispute about the current standard. It’s the rebel in us. So, in forums and reviews, I see people saying, “This other brand is such good quality and not as expensive as Winsor and Newton”. This tends to give W&N a rather bad image especially in the Philippines, so people put a premium on more obscure, difficult to get brands, and because of that attitude from customers, resellers end up pricing these obscure brands much more expensively. It’s almost ironic when I look at forums and Schmincke is said to be “cheaper than W&N” in old posts, but right now, Schmincke is almost 2x as expensive as W&N in our country! Meanwhile, Holbein is more affordable here (presumably because we’re closer to Japan) but apparently it’s expensive in the UK. Daniel Smith, which is supposedly affordable, is sold at almost W&N prices here.
But that’s a discussion for another post. Back to W&N:
The little box it comes in is made of matte, non-slip durable plastic. I’ve dinged it and scratched it and messed it up since this photo, and almost all of that nice pristine gold paint on the logo has worn off, lol. It’s not very permanent. I like the box because it’s lightweight and sturdy, with a well for putting a travel brush in. It also has a little U-shaped tray for water that you stick in a slot on the right, and a slide-out mixing tray.
All Winsor and Newton pans come delicately wrapped first in a paper band that contains the color information, and the pan and cake inside is wrapped in plastic to possibly prevent bleedthrough.
Their pans also have color names and codes stamped on the side of the actual plastic. Not every brand is as thorough as Winsor and Newton about this packaging, except maybe Schmincke.
I asked for the travel set because my friends and I enjoy painting together in our waterkulto sessions, and I usually bring this box because it is most of all, light! I’ve transferred my pans to an even tinier metal tin, though. I’ll post about that soon.
With W&N plastic palettes in particular, the little half pans tend to fall out and I needed to stick double-sided tape to the bottoms of the pans to keep them in place.
It is worth noting that Cotman and Professional sets look almost identical, with the exception of the included brush in the Professional Kit being made of pure sable and colored black instead of the Cotman blue.
The label says: #5 SERIES 916 PURE SABLE while the other side has the brand name. This is a really short-handled brush and I would find it unusable if I don’t take the protective tube it comes with and attach it to the end to make a longer handle. That aside, I find the size of the brush head to be my favorite size for what I paint and I’m still trying to find an equivalent because apparently #5 is not a common in-between number.
Here I’ve attached the tube to the other end and it becomes a length I can work with. (The DIY pans in the tin are not W&N, expanded post about them here).
I made a W&N color chart here below.
Winsor and Newton colors, compared with other brands, are really, really intense. Except Viridian, which is a pigment consistently weak and annoying across different brands so I can’t really fault W&N for this. (My favorite substitute is Holbein’s Viridian Hue.)
When I think about the brands I own that have intense colors, I immediately think, oh, Winsor and Newton, Daniel Smith and Holbein. And if you limit it to single pigments, then only DS and Winsor and Newton remain at the top of the list in terms of pigment load and vibrancy. And Daniel Smith has inconsistent gum arabic levels making their colors syrupy, liftable and more challenging to glaze with, so Winsor and Newton is the easier brand to use for me. For some reason, the formulation is what Goldilocks wants: not too much gum arabic, not too much oxgall, not too much glycerin, just right.
This chart in the photo above and below is done on Canson 200gsm, which is not very absorbent, so the colors are very intense as they remain on the surface of the paper.
I stuck the labels and mixes on the back of that chart.
The following comparison charts are done on Clester 100% cotton paper, which is cream colored, and absorbent, so the colors of all brands in general will be less intense. And the photos were taken under incandescent lighting at night. (I’ll take better photos of the same charts when I get a chance).
Winsor and Newton on the left, Sennelier on the right. You can see the difference in vibrancy, but Sennelier is still really quite vibrant if you use it in real life. W&N is just that much more intense. For me to get that intense blue in the Sennelier chart, I had to mix Sennelier’s Phthalo Blue with Sennelier’s Ultramarine Deep with very little water.
I even ended up making a Winsor and Newton chart of my favorite muted mixes for reference because using the intense colors straight proved too vibrant for me. I love having that immense range of color to work with.
I love slightly more muted brands like Sennelier for when I want to limit myself and not mix so much (like for srsbsns portraits), but for sheer range of options, Winsor and Newton Professional is simply wonderful in the way it delivers. There are some W&N colors that are my favorite out of all the brands, such as their Ultramarine, Winsor Yellow, and Burnt Sienna. In fact, in my Daniel Smith Palette, I stuck a pan of W&N Burnt Sienna there because it is just my favorite.
The downside? It can be expensive. Even with an official distributor in the Philippines (meaning no shipping fees bloating the prices), it is still expensive. So imagine if it was just ferried over here by small resellers who need to make a profit, like with other brands (Holbein, Schmincke, etc) , then it would be downright astronomical.
Also, Winsor and Newton makes a smaller EVERYTHING for a slightly higher price. Thinner, smaller pans (meaning less paint), smaller tubes (14ml instead of 15).
Below, left to right: Winsor and Newton Professional half pan, Sennelier, generic half pan
L-R: W&N, Sennelier, generic pan
There are advantages and disadvantages to this. Cons being, less paint, of course. However I liked that I could jam my thinner W&N pans into the middle space of a metal palette (Sennelier brand). None of my other pans, being chunkier all around, would fit.
Well, that’s pretty much it for my review. This remains one of my favorite brands of all time, and it’s one of the most reliable, well-documented, and well-reviewed brands out there. That means, you can inform yourself a lot more about this brand than about others before you buy it, which is such a biiiiiiig plus for people like me who live in countries with very few art stores, and have to look up all this information, instead of being able to just walk into a brick and mortar shop and ask to try some dot charts (what bliss that would be).
Nothing else for it then, but to show some of my work with this brand. Hope you enjoyed my review!
A coloring book.
Derivan gray watercolor paper.
Derivan gray watercolor paper.
The smooth back side of Canson 200gsm.
Canson Torchon.
Canson 200 gsm.
Moleskine Sketchbook (not watercolor paper)
DIY Journal, Berkeley 180 gsm.
Canson Torchon.
Canson 200 gsm.
Arches Cold Press.
Arches Cold Press.
More watercolor reviews? Check out
Sakura Koi Watercolor
Prang Watercolor
Finetec Arabic Gold
Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolour
Peerless Transparent Watercolor
Kuretake Gansai Tambi
Holbein Watercolor
Sennelier L’Aquarelle
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor
If the review for the brand you’re interested in isn’t up yet, just check my blog from time to time because I will be queuing reviews for the above brands in the next few weeks. :)
More of my watercolor pieces are posted on my instagram.
I have had my watercolors for some time now, so I’m starting a series of reviews on the brands I have. Out of respect for these products and all the people who have loved using them, I wanted to wait until I’d used all of them for some time so that my review would be valid, and I had examples of work done with them. I also waited until I had a good variety of brands to compare to each other. At the moment, the brands I own and have tried are:
Sakura Koi Watercolor
Prang Watercolor
Finetec Arabic Gold
Winsor and Newton Professional Watercolour
Peerless Transparent Watercolor
Kuretake Gansai Tambi
Holbein Watercolor
Sennelier L’Aquarelle
Daniel Smith Extra Fine Watercolor
If the review for the brand you’re interested in isn’t up yet, just check my blog from time to time because I will be queuing reviews for the above brands in the next few weeks. :)
For today’s entry it’s the Sakura Koi Watercolor set of 24 half pans that I will be reviewing.
I used to have a tiny 12-color set of this brand but I let it go for a bigger set. I bought it from my friend April of @iam_artisan’s shop here in Davao.
The biggest 24 set is housed in a substantial plastic palette, maybe the size of a small paper back, but thick. If you check Amazon, you’ll get the dimensions of this box under Product Details. >> 3.2 x 11.8 x 20.3 cm ; 272 g
Obviously I’ve used this guy quite a bit because it’s so splattered with paint.
A size comparison from when they were pristine and new. Ah, bygone memories. :P
This set comes with a short-handled waterbrush with a medium tip. I’ve seen a bunch of review videos and I’m a little surprised by how many people think the brush is broken just because it doesn’t screw left to right. It screws right to left, and I assume it’s made that way so that it doesn’t unscrew itself and leak as you’re using it. I find that I run out of water quite quickly when I use this brush, but that’s because I like to use the small brush reservoir to make puddles for other colors.
In the end I bought another Sakura waterbrush but with a longer handle to give myself a bigger water reservoir.
When I watch reviews of this set, people also don’t know what to make of the foam bars on either side of the cakes and they throw them away! I use them for wiping my waterbrush so I don’t need to bring along paper napkins.
It also contains a nice large mixing plate separated into 5 shallow partitions that you can attach to any side (top, bottom, left, right, or let it sit on top of the lid) as there are hollow posts on all sides to give you this freedom of placement.
@irateves prefers to place the mixing tray on top of the lid like this to conserve space in restaurants with tiny tables, and when we’re out at a cafe with no nearby sink and faucet, she likes to drop a piece of ice from the complimentary water they serve onto the palette, so she has clean water as it melts. Genius!
It also has a little recessed thumb ring on the bottom (that I never use), but which I still appreciate because some wire thumb rings on more expensive metal palettes aren’t recessed, and make the palette lopsided when set on a table. This set sits perfectly flat when you put it down.
It has 24 colors, but not much color information. This is a very affordable student-grade set, so I don’t expect any artist-grade perks like pigment names and numbers. I also expect a moderate load of fillers and brighteners to offset the affordable price, and I don’t have any illusions about light-fastness. This is student grade, meant for practice, and it works well for that. Some colors in this set have been reported to fade quite fast, such as the notorious Jaune Brilliant (a favorite of many for skin tones), the yellows, and the pinks.
Top L-R: Peerless, KGT
Bottom L-R: Winsor and Newton, Sakura Koi
I don’t really care for the chalky feel of some colors when used thickly, but when used with a lot of water, you can definitely make this work for you. To me, they feel like concentrated inks made into cake form. They’re also very bright and saturated, and if you don’t mind lightfast issues or pigment purity, this is probably a perfectly good set for daily journaling in your Hobo/Fauxbonichi. The pages of journals stay closed so most pages don’t get a lot of light exposure and will thus be protected from fading a little longer. My good friend @irateves uses this for her daily journal doodles and her work is so funny and awesome, you should totally pay her or her instagram a visit.
Here are some color comparisons with a much more expensive Winsor and Newton Professional set.
As you can see, it holds up very well in terms of saturation and vibrance, but if you run your fingers over the colors, the W&N are smooth and satiny, and the Sakura feel powdery and dry. The Sakura also look just a bit more dull than the Winsor and Newton, especially the violets. The yellows aren’t as good either. But the Sakura blues are quite vibrant, and the Sakura reds are more opaque and slightly less beautiful but still very intense.
Here are more colors. The Winsor and Newton genuine single-pigment colors have some organic granulation going on, but since the Sakura Koi hues are presumably synthetic imitations, they are smooth and more opaque, like inks. But they are quite intense and saturated.
If we left all the analysis at this point, you would say, “Well for heaven’s sake, why would anyone bother getting the Winsor and Newton over the Sakura if there’s only a tiny difference? I can barely tell which is which.”
Actually, there’s a big difference. I really noticed it when I started glazing, blending, and charging colors. There’s also a marked difference in how each brand looks when dry. That’s why it’s important to hold off judging a watercolor brand until you have really worked with it for at least a couple of weeks.
Here’s a galaxy comparison with Kuretake Gansai Tambi and Winsor and Newton. It’s harder to blend and mix the colors because the Sakura Koi are a bit more sluggish when in a puddle with other colors, like say, a galaxy.
TOP LEFT TO RIGHT: W&N and Sakura Koi
BOTTOM LEFT TO RIGHT: Kuretake Gansai Tambi, Kuretake Gansai Tambi
As you can see above, Winsor and Newton on the left blends and combines with other colors so much more naturally than the Sakura Koi on the right. The Koi set works well when used in predefined sections like simple single-layer sketches, so I’ve tended to use it for more cartoony and doodle-type work.
It can still look good when blending, though, you just need to work a little bit harder and be more deliberate than with an artist grade set.
Sakura Koi will always have a place in my art supplies shelf because it is the very first watercolor set I ever used. It introduced me to using a waterbrush and that alone is worth getting this set. For a student grade price this is a very good buy, but because this used to be cheap, it became popular. And because it got hyped, it became harder to buy, and the prices have kept climbing higher and it’s getting quite ridiculous. I’ve noticed some sellers selling this at a really, really high price which is really not worth paying for a student grade set. If you are being sold this set at any price over 1000 pesos, hold off buying this and get a Kuretake Gansai Tambi set instead, because you would be paying a more correct price point for quality.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a good quality paint set! It’s worlds apart from the chalky nameless watercolors you buy for school supplies. It just doesn’t need to be compared to artist grade because that would be too unfair. I’ve done a lot of work with this set and I still really enjoyed myself when using it, so I don’t regret buying it at all. I got mine for 950 pesos and that is an ok price for it.
Nothing left for it then, but to show work I’ve done with this set. As I mentioned, because of the way it behaves, I’ve used this for cartoony ACEOs and doodle-type stuff that I was into when I first started learning watercolor last year in June. :) A good chunk of the ACEOS below were done with Sakura Koi.
Hope you enjoyed this review! For more watercolor brands and reviews, click here.
Ohai there! New DIY post for all you artsy folks! :)
I just made the cutest. tiniest. most adorable. palette. ever.
I mean just look at it! Don’t you just want to pinch it it’s so small and cute.
Plus I decorated it with a flower that I painted as well, so it is super personalized and no one else will have a palette like it. <3
So why did I make this? I paint in cafes a lot and sometimes I really don’t want to bring a bag with me. While I do love my terrifically spiffy “offishul” metal and enamel watercolor palette, I also love my DIY palettes to bits. Because I can fit them into my pocket with a waterbrush and hardly even notice the added weight, I can bring them everywhere with me.
I also really, really wanted to make a limited palette. From my carefully selected colors I can make 2 color triads. The one on the left is a saturated triad with Carmine, Cobalt Blue, and Gamboge Nova, which are basically the colors I think are very harmonious with each other and are similar in value. The one on the right is my absolute favorite desaturated, granulating triad with Ultramarine Deep, Burnt Sienna, and Yellow Ochre. And in the middle, a well for Payne’s Grey.
I made my little palette out of all things, an old Nivea tin and oven-bake Sculpey.
I decided not to take any pictures of me sculpting the polymer clay and baking it because there are soooo many youtube videos about it already! :) Watch how to embed the polymer clay into your tin, create wells, and bake it here:
I made the wells with my waterbrush cap instead of cookie cutters. Once your tin is ready and the polymer clay baked, you can opt to paint the lid white. In my case, I painted the entire tin white with spray paint.
After it was done, I stamped one of my designs on the lid, but it wiped off, so I decided to take one of my watercolor drawings, cut it out, and superglue it to the lid.
(TUT: Carving stamps)
Then I coated the whole lid, drawing and all, in clear nail polish (to prevent bleeding in the next step).
If you don’t seal the watercolor somehow, it will bleed when you apply Diamond Glaze (which is a water-based dimensional glue) over it.
Once the nail polish has completely dried, apply a decent layer of Diamond Glaze over the lid. It will create a sort of dome of adhesive over the drawing. If you’re familiar with Diamond Glaze, you’ll know that this is popular with people who make tile pendants and diy jewelry with artwork, because of its raised, glass-like finish.
Diamond Glaze needs 1-2 days to cure. It may have some air bubbles, so pop those with a needle or a lighter. Then cover the entire thing with a plastic lid to protect it from dust, and allow it to set and do its thing overnight.
When it has set, you will have a little piece of art on top of your palette lid that is protected from scuffs, smudging, and is basically going to stay pretty for a very long time.
Here it is beside my other DIY Lego Palette:
It’s even smaller than the other tin, which is already pretty small to begin with.
Time to put it to the test! Only two colors in this piece, gray and brown, and I haven’t even used half of my limited palette yet! Is it normal to love this little palette so freaking much haha >_<
I hope you enjoyed this post! Even if you have a ready-made travel palette, why don’t you try personalizing them and making them your own? You can use Mod Podge as well as Diamond Glaze, and there are a variety of substitutes for those products :) Happy painting!
Dear Directions Rose Red, you are the bomb dot com.
Thank you @berbiedolls for this awesome new color!
PS. As I told my friends at dyefest, I like putting all my color under a layer of black so that I can grow out my old bleached hair and not worry having to maintain roots. My hair is just so much more fuss-free when I only dye the bottom layers and I still get a lot of vibrant color. Win-win for me!
Sooo most of it is hidden right now, but this red pink is still so easily seen and bright. It’s the perfect shade of saturated pink for me, I'm in love with it. Didn't bleach at all, either. Put it straight on top of a bunch of fading orange, yellow, green, and blue and I still got this mostly uniform color. Photo of my base before dyeing below:
I love that it has such great coverage even over a lot of fading colors. And I only left it on for 10 minutes so I can fade it out and eventually go purple or a different shade of pink. Putting Rose Red in my list of Holy Grail dyes! :)
( i also used Overtone colored conditioner (the same one Dainty Squid uses!) in pink during the rinse and DUDE it smells like bubblegum! I love it. You can also get it from @berbiedolls :D
I’m going to be using this pink conditioner for my pink hair upkeep, so I’ll do a review on it when my pink starts to fade and I need to top up.😍💖💕)
Hey there! I have a set of Holbein paints that I wanted to use for my plein air/cafe sketching with friends, so I decided to make an ultra-portable DIY kit for it, using generic lego clones (not the Lego brand, too cost-ineffective), and a tiny tin box (that used to contain a wooden puzzle).
Read on for more photos and the how-to. :)
A while back I got my Holbein watercolors in the 48 set. I usually don’t buy this many colors, but that’s just how much I love Holbein. They’re wonderful. And I was able to make so many granulating mixes with the 48 colors that I will share with everyone in a later post! :)
Anyway, I loved them immediately but I couldn’t see myself taking a big box to cafes and restaurants, so I decided to make a small travel palette with all my favorite colors. That way, I could customize the colors I wanted. The whole idea stemmed from a bunch of very cheap generic legos that I found on sale:
First I removed all the posts in the middle with a pair of very sharp and strong pliers. This part was kind of a pain, literally. The pliers I was using were kind of stiff and dug into my palm. I don’t suggest making as many as I did, or if you really want to make a ton, use softer lego bricks than I did, lol. I think the ones I bought were MEGA sturdy.
I spray painted some square ones that were really similar to half pans, and some rectangular ones (full pans). I also spray painted the underside of the lid white so I could use it as a mixing surface. I used BOSNY car spray paint in white.
A few spray painting tips:
*Spray one very thin coat every 5 mins. I did 2-3 coats.
*Don’t spray a thick coat in one go, or it will NEVER dry. I’ve spray painted a ton of things before so I know this from experience. :3
*work in a well ventilated area.
*place newspapers/paper bags generously over your area to protect your floor!
Wait for everything to dry at least 24 hours, then fill them all up with your favorite colors! This was the most fun part. Look how small my DIY box is beside a 60 ml tube of Ultramarine Deep, lol. Ultramarine Deep DEFINITELY needed to be in a full pan!
Choices, choices.
My favorite pink.
Done!
This tiny little box is surprisingly roomy. I can fit 2 waterbrushes, 1 kneaded eraser, one pencil, and paper napkins into it.
When it’s all stacked up.
I’m super happy with my little Lego Watercolor Travel Box. It took a bit of elbow grease, but somehow it seems satisfying to use something that you put together yourself. That’s the fun of DIY! :)
UPDATE:
I was able to add in 5 even tinier lego bricks for my accent colors. See them on the top row? :) They’re so small but there is a LOT of color in there! I know because I barely made a dent when I painted some stuff yesterday.
UPDATE: More paintings!
Obviously I’ve stained it and messed it up and used it a lot by now :3
Calligraphy: How To Make Your Own Gold Ink for Writing and Illustration
In a previous post, I reviewed Finetec’s Arabic Gold watercolor pan. I absolutely love this gold pan from Finetec, because it is such a satisfying gold color! However, it’s kind of tedious to have to wet the pan, brush it into your calligraphy pen nib, and repeat for illustrating an entire page. I like to use the gold ink for drawing leaves and flowers over an entire black page, and I needed something that i wouldn’t feel bad about wasting, and in a form that didn’t require me to have to brush it on.
My ink on the left, Finetec on the right.
Leaves made with my DIY ink.
DISCLAIMER: In no way is this gold ink going to replace the more expensive Finetec Gold. It’s the best for a reason! But, based on my photos, my DIY gold ink LOOKS PRETTY FREAKING GREAT and is a good addition to your gold ink supplies. Besides, it’s so affordable, you will feel no guilt using it over and over, thus giving you more freedom to experiment and be more liberated in what you create. So, on to the tutorial!
First, you will need some containers to put your DIY inks in. I bought some of these glass jars at a chemist’s shop for 10 pesos each. Try medical supplies stores and drugstores, too. National Book Store also sells these in their laboratory equipment section (why do they have that section??).
They are wide enough for me to dip my pen in. Of course you can use absolutely any container you want. The wider the mouth and the sturdier the base, the better. I just got these because they were pretty.
Next, GOLD POSTER PAINT. Yes. That is the secret. Poster paint makes amazing calligraphy ink. 90% of the time I use black poster paint diluted with water for my regular calligraphy projects and I love it.
In this case, I purchased several poster paint brands in gold and silver. Pentel’s Gold Poster Paint works the best, but you can use other brands to experiment with, like Reeves.
Dilute your poster paint with water. Try putting in a larger amount of paint before adding a little bit of water. You will know when it’s a good consistency when the paint flows nicely off your nib. In my case, it was closer to a 50% paint, 50% water mix with the Pentel brand, and a 75% paint, 25% water mix with the another. Experiment! Just make sure to add the water TO the paint, and not the other way around so that you don’t waste anything.
I used a small plastic stirrer to transfer small amounts of poster paint to my container.
When you are happy with the ratios, make a bigger batch!
That’s the formula. Poster paint + water. Really, really, easy! Take note the success of this depends on the poster paint’s actual gold color. For example, Dong-A’s gold was very meh, but Pentel’s gold was quite lovely and saturated. Reeves was somewhere between the two.
Here are my pages done with my DIY ink again!
^top to bottom sentences: Finetec, Pentel, Reeves.
This is a very affordable way to try drawing with Gold ink! It’s much cheaper than gouache, which is like a fancy poster paint and what some calligraphers use diluted with water. But I guess this proves that poster paint works just as well!
I hope you enjoyed my DIY! Did you like this tutorial? Give it a go and let me know how you get on. :)
Happy writing!
If anyone here is a reader of my blog, you know that i try to put a lot of detail and helpful information in my posts. I even have a READER MAIL tag for people who send me questions, and I dedicate a post to them every few weeks.
I hope that my reviews and tutorials have helped you, especially those who ask hair questions. I've put up a Paypal Donation button on my sidebar for those who want to say thanks! You can donate any amount you want, whether that is a cup of coffee's worth, or something bigger. :) Consider it my blog’s humble tip jar, and know that I am grateful for any contribution you make.
Donations will go towards even better quality posts, more in-depth reviews, and of course, more time to answer the good chunk of reader mail I receive every few weeks. My blog is not only limited to hair, it tackles a wide variety of subjects pertaining to crafts, watercolor, crochet, calligraphy, and various helpful DIY's. If I receive enough donations, I can review more items. I hope to keep updating the information on this blog and making it a better experience for anyone who visits it. Thanks for all your support! :)
Howdy, folks! I’ve got a good chunk of questions to answer so I’ve decided to put up a post. Again, I only post when I receive around 3 or more, so sorry for those who asked aaages ago. Hope everything still worked out for you! :)
coffeedtea said: Hi, Jad!! I saw your recipe for stripping semi-permanent dyes without bleach-- do you still use the same recipe? Also, would it be wise if I used the peroxide-less version of it to strip out my old color, then right after just put some coconut oil and then bleach my hair to a lighter blonde? Thanks!! I hope you have a nice day!!
Hi, coffeedtea! Yes, I do still use the same recipe. However, using peroxide is something everyone should be careful about, so I don’t do it very often, only when I think it’s the logical option at the time depending on the health and overall state of my hair. You can definitely still use the formula without peroxide, the results will be similar to many of the generic fading formulas recommended on youtube and the internet.
Your hair will be very dry after fading due to all the color and dirt-pulling ingredients, so it is recommended that you baby your hair for a while before subjecting it to further torture, I mean bleaching, lol. So, I would definitely wait, deep condition, assess my hair after a few days, and THEN see if it’s good to bleach. Sometimes damage won’t show until after a few days, and sometimes people can overlook that. Good luck!
Anonymous said: How do I turn pink hair turquoise?
Hi! Unfortunately, pink is quite far from turquoise on the color wheel.
Check it out *points above*. You see that from turquoise, pink is 2-3 color grades away. You would need to bleach to get to a base for pink, or be patient and work around the color wheel. You will have to sport a color or 2 that is NOT pink as you do this. You don’t have to do it my way, but this is always what I do:
I would wait for my turquoise hair to fade. When it’s very faded I would put pink over it, which would turn purple, and that would be my hair color for a few months until it faded. Depending on how much yellow is in my base, it will be more purple or more pink. Check out this video of someone dyeing her turquoise hair pink.
When the purple fades I would then put a strong pink color over it which will turn everything either pink-purple, or a legit pink depending on how purple the base is. It will still have a few hints of purple under everything, but pink is generally forgiving.
Anonymous said: Hey Jad! I've been thinking about following your example & colour my hair -read your posts about 500 times already, but I still don't understand the colour mixing thing properly & hope maybe you can help? I can't bleach my hair to a white-yellow level and tone, so I only reach the yellow-orange stage at best. But I'd like a really dark lilac where my roots are and pastel lilac further down. Would I need to first put pink/red and then a blue hue on top? I'm super confused tbh. Please save me?
Hi! Whoa, sounds like you’re stressing out. :) If I were in your position I would probably just get a pink-based purple so it doesn’t clash so much with your orange base. Some people have had pretty good results with DIrections Plum over brown or brassy hair, so you can try that. Keep in mind it will be a dark purple, not a lilac. You can then wait for that to fade while babying your hair, then either rebleach or redye with the more lilac-color depending on how it all turns out when it’s faded.
1) Read this forum thread and
2)watch this video of a girl dyeing her brassy hair purple for more information.
Keep in mind I don’t know what your hair really looks like, so this is advice to take with a grain of salt. Just use common sense and logic and make the most informed decision you can. :)
kristinesnewleaf said: Hi! Im from Manila :) you said in your review that you bought winsor & newton when people started hiring you for commissions. Is the 14 half pan set enough (the one from your post)? Or did you get a bigger set? :) also, si @artyanimalmnl lang seller?
Hello, Kristine! I work on post-card sized and ACEO-sized pieces most of the time, and I have a bunch of other paints so I haven’t run out of anything yet. I’m running low on some so to be safe I bought tubes of my most used colors, which are the single pigment Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna. They sell for 800-1000 per 15mltube where I live. TBH, buying by the tube is the better way because when you buy so many pans you may not use all of the colors. I bought my Winsor and Newton Professional Field Box from Morning Light Art and Gallery, which is an actual art store in Davao :) @artyanimalmnl sells Cotman, but she can get the Professional/artist grade on special order for you. A bunch of other people sell W&N Professional on instagram. Try @cheriefer16, @artforeverph, @dolcesonline.
Anonymous said: Will you make the diy gold ink tutorial? (PS your reviews are really great and insightful!!)
Hello, yes! Haha. Thanks. I’ve been compiling the photos for it, so I can probably release that tutorial in the coming week. :) You can follow me on instagram @jadmontenegro if you want like an instant update on when I’ve posted it.
Anonymous said: would one container of directions hair dye work on thick shoulder length hair?
Heya! Depends on how saturated/dark you want your color. If you want to use the undiluted color, definitely 2 tubs would be a better idea. I have pretty thick hair and one tub isn’t enough for me. If you’re going to dilute it with about the same ratio of conditioner, one tub can be enough. :)
Hey there guys! So I went on a supply run some time ago and picked up an Escoda Reserva Kolinsky Tajmyr travel brush in the size #8.
A short primer on Escoda Brushes: They are made in Barcelona, Spain, and come in several categories: Reserva (pure male sable) Optimo (female and male sable mix), Versatil (synthetic mimic of sable), Perla/Barocco (black and white synthetics meant to act like synthetics), Aquario (their giant absorbent mops).
You can purchase the travel metal-handled version, or wooden handled version for each brush category.
I’ve been using it a lot and I’m really happy with it! Prior to this, I’ve been using synthetic brushes that come to very fine, stiff points that allowed me to control my painting so much that people would ask me if I did them in pencils! So I decided to get a soft sable to try loosening up my paintings. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my previous painting styles, but I also wanted to try soft, romantic paintings with lots of water and juicy washes and bleeding colors and all that fun stuff. So on to the review!
I got the Escoda, some Winsor and Newton Masking Fluid (which smells ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE, but works really consistently and that’s good enough for me), a cheap chinese brush for applying the masking fluid, a 2/0 Sakura brush, and a pad of Derivan paper in A4 size.
I bought everything in this photo above from Morning Light Art and Gallery. :)
Morning Light imports these brushes straight from Barcelona, and I was treated to this open box of beautiful golden brushes when I came to pick up my reservations.
Check out this gigantic #20 wooden handled Escoda Reserva. You could probably paint a chair with it. It was gorgeous, I wanted to rub it on my face MY PRECIOUSSS but managed to restrain myself from behaving like a total dweeb at the store, with moderate success.
Like I said, I bought this #8 Escoda Reserva to loosen up my painting and it did just that! I love how soft the bristles are, and how responsive. For people who have been painting exclusively with synthetic brushes on small paintings, the difference can be quite jarring. Some may even react, “Y U NOT GIVE ME THE CONTROL LIKE SYNTHETIC YOU STUPID EXPENSIVE BRUSH?!”
But pure sable brushes really aren’t meant for that. So right now I use the two kinds alternately, the sables for laying down water and making big flowy shapes with the paint, and the synthetics for details and scriptlining and writing words.
VERSATILITY
Below is a flower done with a red taklon brush (size 2) and the Escoda #8. Sable for the subtle color graduation, synthetic for the edges and stamens.
An unfinished painting of a forest I did exclusively with the Escoda.
It’s possible to achieve both fine detail and lovely soft gradients with one brush.
SYNTHETIC VERSUS NATURAL HAIR
Here is a comparison chart of my favorite synthetic # 10 (shown below)
and the Escoda Reserva brush. When using the synthetic to make the corkscrews, the hairs separate, but since I never do this motion in my paintings, that difference is almost moot. To someone who LETTERS with watercolor, however, that is one thing to take note of because it will be quite apparent in calligraphy.
VIEW THE ABOVE COMPARISON PHOTO IN A LARGER SIZE HERE.
More observations above, but the biggest things are:
SABLES:
sables hold more water and more paint
have a wider range of line widths
can create softer looking washes
have a greater paint load
require you to go slower so as to maintain the point
produce natural looking strokes
their subtle touch allows you to work on more types of paper. (frustrated by that cheap paper pilling and disintegrating under your stiff, merciless synthetic brush? Try it with a sable)
SYNTHETICS:
are great for uniform lettering
have a smaller range of line widths
hold less water and the hairs can splay out as the water runs out of the brush faster.
they can make pencil-thin, more uniform lines and thus also give a more synthetic appearance to your work if you choose.
Also, lifting, scrubbing and drybrushing are synthetic territory, no other brush does those three things better, at least in my opinion.
With a big synthetic brush, though, like my #10, you can get close to but not exactly mimic all of the pure sable’s characteristics. you can maybe get a similar line width range, but not the same paint or water load, and if you want a natural, effortless look to your paintings you can do it with a natural hair brush. Hence my decision to use both a synthetic and a sable! Problem solved lol.
One last observation I have is that a travel brush (which is slightly more expensive than a wooden handled one) has a metal handle, and is noticeably heavier. It took me some time to get used to the extra weight, but I adjusted after a few days, and now I’m enjoying the convenience of being able to bring a brush in its own container. It fits right into the brush well of my Winsor and Newton Compact Field Kit. I make sure to hang it upside down to dry after painting and I don’t store it wet into its metal handle to avoid the possibility of mold. It is a beautiful, gorgeous thing with its varnished glossy wood that shows the grain, ended by a golden metal ferrule and handle. These travel Escoda Reservas are elegant, highly functional, and seem like works of art in themselves.
IN CONCLUSION
Of course, keep in mind that most veteran artists will tell you that even the most expensive brush cannot make up for poor composition, bad execution, or lack of skill. I’ve seen some friends make some truly astounding pieces with student grade materials, and I’m confident they could produce a masterpiece with a wet noodle dipped in barbecue sauce! So I’m glad that I started out with some affordable options so that I could make an informed choice about each new “upgraded” tool I purchase, and I always remember that I have to regularly use each tool to bring out its real qualities. If you are not comfortable spending money on a pure sable brush, there are a lot of options that try to mimic them, such as the Versatil range from Escoda.
That’s pretty much it for my review. I’m really using the heck out of this brush. I use it for everything, whereas before I would use several synthetics for one painting. It’s really quite the workhorse and worth every cent.
I did this painting exclusively with the Escoda Reserva # 8. It felt a little less like work because the bigger sized brush managed to make a 9x12 piece more doable for me.
I look forward to collecting some more sizes. However I have come to realize that my art material "acquisition” needs some responsible thinking and I should reflect on whether it is worth these animals being hunted for sable brushes, but that is a post for another day. I am thinking of trying sable-mimicking hairs such as the Escoda Versatil, which has some very good reviews. I’ve already put in some reservation inquiries for incoming Versatils and I’m excited to review those next. :)
