#also i don't have sumi ink or gansai

[ixchelish]

this week, i wanted to try etegami. etegami is supposed to be “seasonal”, but my city completely forgot about winter. so i used @straycatj​ new lucky visitor! the reference post is here

to be honest, i really like to be precise in my traditional art, so etegami is difficult for me. to make etegami, you hold a brush with two fingers at the far end, and you make slow lines onto washi paper. i failed this first attempt.... i couldn’t bring myself to hold the brush so loosely. but i like the result, even though it is too controlled.

i think etegami will be good for me. i have to learn to let go.

[whatthefoucault]

Your watercolor paintings are amazing!

I'm sorry if this question was there before, but what watercolor do you use, if it's not a secret?

Hello there, and thank you so much for your kind words!

I'm more than happy to share what paints I use!

At the moment, I'm using a lot of a sumi-e watercolour set from Choosing Keeping for my Hollow Knight Art Month pieces, though I don't see the exact palette I got from their London shop here on the website - the others look really cool too. It gives wonderful subdued tones and is really lovely to work with, layers super well once dried but can also be manipulated a nicely when it's still wet. I'm a big fan of their other gansai palette sets as well - I've used their 1930s set and the 1980s set, though I haven't done much yet with either, but I'm really excited to. Be warned: this shop is dangerous, all their art supplies are GORGEOUS, and the bigger/fancier sets are wayyyyy out of my budget!

I also use a lot of Derwent's watercolour paint pan sets. I like to use the Graphitint set, which is watercolour blended with graphite, which gives lovely muted tones that I love for autumn scenes and soft illustrations. I also use Inktense set #1, which has a nice clarity and vibrancy, and is also permanent when dry, so it layers really well without lifting, if that's your bag. The pastel set is also really fun, have a little more opacity (like a gouache-adjacent watercolour) and has a really spring-summer vibe for landscapes or whatever. HOWEVER. You'll pretty much always find somewhere where they're on sale as well - I've never paid full price for them.

And lastly, I looooooooove working with acrylic inks. Most of mine are Daler Rowney FW inks, and they're very fun for projects where you want to work in monochrome.

There are a few other things I've played with, but these are the things I'm using the most lately. Hope this helps, and happy painting!