Royal Talens: Ecoline on Wood.

I'm sitting here thinking about how I should do this. I don't want to rate the products I review. If you want to read customer reviews, go somewhere else. This is about a process -- a journey. I want to tell you what it was like using this medium and exploring with it? Would I recommend it? Why would I recommend it? Or why wouldn't I? There's something for everyone. And when it comes to art supplies, I've noticed they're a lot like instruments -- the sound they produce is dependent on every tool you bring to the table, from the brush, to canvas.

With the Ecoline watercolors, I chose to try them on a wood canvas. I knew it was going to be a tricky medium. I knew the wood was going to take the color and make it bloom beyond the boundaries of where I was trying to control it. Watercolor "blossoms," really well on wood. You get a slight 'wet on wet,' technique pretty easily. (I hear your minds going in the gutters, you pervs -- nuh uh uh!).

One thing that really surprised me were the brush pens. I really didn't have too high of expectations for using them on wood, and honestly, I was a little afraid the wood might prove to be to abrasive, but they worked wonderfully!

I highly recommend both -- even the blender pen pulled off some amazing witchcraft stunts when I needed to smooth and lift some areas of paint.

I'll be doing another review of these on actual watercolor paper. The only problem I had was with the brush pens -- and that was that I couldn't put color directly from the brush pen down onto an acrylic block, pick it up with my paint brush/water brush, and then transfer it to the wood. The watercolors from the acrylic block to the canvas washed out and lightened way too much. 

But, as I was saying earlier, I'm pretty sure that's because of the combination of tools I was using and the wood canvas. I'll definitely be adding Ecoline products to my supply and I look forward to using them on regular watercolor paper.

Cheers, m'lovelies!

Winter

Note: I also used Royal Talens Gouache for the white and some of the black and green. I don't have a lot of it, so I'm not sure if it's fair to review based on availability couple tubes and limited experience, but with what I have -- I quite like it. It took a bit of layering to get the white really opaque, but that's been my experience when putting it on top of watercolor. Watercolor wants to lift so easily.

✴✴✴If you're looking for a good place to purchase these, and having trouble finding them stocked in your local craft stores (I was, unfortunately!), I've heard Dickblick and Hyatt's are both good places.✴✴✴